So I recently picked up some more Hive Tyrants to expand my Nidzilla army. I already have a 750 point Spearhead Detachment (Flyrant, Trygon, 2x Tyrannofexes) and I am trying to make a 750 point Supreme HQ Detachment that includes the Swarmlord (which I already have) and the aforementioned Tyrants.
I'm having trouble deciding between making my two monsters Walkrants and Flyrants. In my head, if I make them Walkrants, I have enough points to add a unit of Tyrant Guard to protect the Swarmlord from first turn shooting attacks. If I were super budget with those Walkrants, I could even throw in a Maleceptor or a Haruspex as part of that Detachment. What I don't like though is how I'm giving up a lot of mobility by not putting wings onto them. I've grown to really like the Flyrant's speed and I definitely have the points to slap wings on the both of them (and even enough to throw in a Lictor afterwards).
Are Walkrants still worth building or would I be regretting it later on?
Not sure how to runs this traits wise:
Choice of 3 set ups (think along defense buff lines)
1: carnifex and hive ts are always counted as bein in cover unless they advance or declare charges. So this makes them effective 2+ armour if they play it cool
2: carnifex and hive ts are 6+ fnp 3: 1 of the hive ts are -1 to hit, and its the roll 3d6 pick highest trait.
in all 3 set ups carnifex are all -1 to hit
Whats more annoying to kill? I feel like the hts are more a target as they are not -1 to hit, so I could at least make one have that bonus.
Dark eldar loose pretty hard to devilgaunt spam actually.
Tervigon (warlord/w adaptive biology, chameleonic) standing next to a malanthrope so she's -2 to hit. 3 squads of 30 gaunts (20 devourers 10 fleshborers per squad) is your core.
After that you'll need either a kraken genestealer detachment, or a kronos hive guard detachment.
Dark eldar don't get quite as much anti-horde firepower as regular eldar do. And str4 guns are pretty good againgst them if you bring enough shots. They are very good againgst our big bugs though.
Warriors die to dissy's and talos too easy so those aren't good. Hive tyrants will struggle to last more than 2 turns as well unless you roll hot on your 4++.
Spore mines can actually be pretty useful if you take a few as their guns are short range and can be used to make them move how you want.
Eihnlazer wrote: Dark eldar loose pretty hard to devilgaunt spam actually.
Tervigon (warlord/w adaptive biology, chameleonic) standing next to a malanthrope so she's -2 to hit. 3 squads of 30 gaunts (20 devourers 10 fleshborers per squad) is your core.
After that you'll need either a kraken genestealer detachment, or a kronos hive guard detachment.
Dark eldar don't get quite as much anti-horde firepower as regular eldar do. And str4 guns are pretty good againgst them if you bring enough shots. They are very good againgst our big bugs though.
Warriors die to dissy's and talos too easy so those aren't good. Hive tyrants will struggle to last more than 2 turns as well unless you roll hot on your 4++.
Spore mines can actually be pretty useful if you take a few as their guns are short range and can be used to make them move how you want.
Ok, some things to think about, thanks.
I love biovores and spore mines but near enough his entire list has FLY so I can't use them for area denial as usual.
Flyrants are okay but they’re not gonna bring down flyers on their own. Tyrannofexes with acid spray can beat them up pretty well but they need to be close.
Smite and other powers helps a lot too, you can deal 6+ MW's to one a turn, sure CWE will deny a couple but cant deny them all. Having a Kronos detachment helps as well.
Melee will work but OW will be hard to eat, you really just need to focus one down really hard with more than 1 thing.
IMO combine the genestealers into one squad and drop the carapaces. They’re best in squads above 10 and will definitely take some casualties getting into melee. Give the termagants Devourers, those will do some real work.
Badablack wrote: IMO combine the genestealers into one squad and drop the carapaces. They’re best in squads above 10 and will definitely take some casualties getting into melee. Give the termagants Devourers, those will do some real work.
I completely agree with combining the 'stealer units together, smaller units are bad. I'm not sure I would bother with the devourers on the gants, unless maybe dropping the hormagaunts entirely and adding some regular termagants to take as losses to avoid losing the devourers too fast.. I know if I'm playing against this list, I'm not letting that unit of 10 get anywhere near shooting range and they just die way too quickly.....
I have about 2k additional points over this stuff...more if you count unpainted genestealers.
The warriors came with 4 devourers, 3 deathspitters( my favorite), 1 venom cannon and 2 barbed stranglers.
Since it is doubles but still ITC I was trying to keep it simple....1 forward attack group and 1 defensive unit supporting the Hive Guard.
Most of the meta is Dark Eldar, Orks, Demons, Knights and Eldar….but some Tau and Pure Guard.....Ive noticed a lot of guys testing out GSC armies this past couple weeks. Ive only seen 1 other nid player.
Automatically Appended Next Post: ok what about Hive Fleet Hydra
In the FAQ in mentions that no unit can Advance more than once in a Movement Phase. There is an example that the Advance roll modifies the Move Characteristic and if that unit moves again its NEW movement is what is used.
The Nid stratagem Metabolic Overdrive? says after a unit moves it may move again (including Advance if it chooses to) Does this NOT conflict with the FAQ?
So if my Genestealers move 8" and Advance 5" move and the Swarmlord gives them another movement in the Shooting phase...they still only move 8" more as it is a different phase.(can they Advance with this move??)
So if my Hormagaunts move 8" and Advance 5" move and I use Metabolic Overdrive do I move 13" or do I break the FAQ and move 8" plus and Advance roll?
In the FAQ in mentions that no unit can Advance more than once in a Movement Phase. There is an example that the Advance roll modifies the Move Characteristic and if that unit moves again its NEW movement is what is used.
The Nid stratagem Metabolic Overdrive? says after a unit moves it may move again (including Advance if it chooses to) Does this NOT conflict with the FAQ?
So if my Genestealers move 8" and Advance 5" move and the Swarmlord gives them another movement in the Shooting phase...they still only move 8" more as it is a different phase.(can they Advance with this move??)
So if my Hormagaunts move 8" and Advance 5" move and I use Metabolic Overdrive do I move 13" or do I break the FAQ and move 8" plus and Advance roll?
If you are moving a unit twice in one phase you only make one advance roll. IE unit moves 6 plus 3 inches from roll for a total of 9. You then use some ability that let's you move again in the same phase, you move 9 again. NOT 9+d6. The wording allowing you to advance with the ability is for the situation of you move normally, then use the ability and decide to advance, allowing a D6 roll.
In the FAQ in mentions that no unit can Advance more than once in a Movement Phase. There is an example that the Advance roll modifies the Move Characteristic and if that unit moves again its NEW movement is what is used.
The Nid stratagem Metabolic Overdrive? says after a unit moves it may move again (including Advance if it chooses to) Does this NOT conflict with the FAQ?
So if my Genestealers move 8" and Advance 5" move and the Swarmlord gives them another movement in the Shooting phase...they still only move 8" more as it is a different phase.(can they Advance with this move??)
So if my Hormagaunts move 8" and Advance 5" move and I use Metabolic Overdrive do I move 13" or do I break the FAQ and move 8" plus and Advance roll?
If you are moving a unit twice in one phase you only make one advance roll. IE unit moves 6 plus 3 inches from roll for a total of 9. You then use some ability that let's you move again in the same phase, you move 9 again. NOT 9+d6. The wording allowing you to advance with the ability is for the situation of you move normally, then use the ability and decide to advance, allowing a D6 roll.
Advance modifiers reset each phase.
Basically you just get the Advance Die roll 1 time. or highest of 3d6 with kraken and that modifiers your movement characteristic for the rest of the round.
So kraken genestealers, you decide to move and advnace, roll 3d6, get a 6, so you are moving 8+6=14" in the move phase. Then lets say you daisy chain them to be near the swarmlord and in the shooting phase he uses hive commander. they move 8+highest of 3d6 again. So you reroll for the next phase.
From my experience Hydra generally doesn't want any monstrous creatures. It is basically the swarm-tactics hive fleet, bring lots of infantry who can benefit from its ability and use their low cost to accommodate setting some points aside for respawns late-game (can drop large units in the opponent's backfield or bring back synapse nodes).
I'd swap out the two monsters for more infantry. Take a Tyranid Prime to bolster the Warriors and use the remaining points on more bodies for your troops.
The Plan was to Swarmy the Genestealers into the opponent turn 1 or if things look bleak hide them in the nodes.
Use metabolic overdrive to get the 30 Hormagaunts into easy charge range on round 2 and bring in the Mawloc at the same time.
8 CPs use 3 on the Stealers to fight twice+ 1 for Metabolic. and if need be use the fight twice on turn 2 as well. The Warrors and Swarmy are going to sit back hold objectives and fight deepstrikers
So all my Stealers and Guants get to reroll all misses and hopefully the Broodlord can help with anything they cant take down.
Now who and what my opponent does will cause me some headaches for sure. I am betting that I will take the brunt of the other 2 players retaliation so I hope to get some decent help from my efforts.
admironheart wrote: The Plan was to Swarmy the Genestealers into the opponent turn 1 or if things look bleak hide them in the nodes.
Use metabolic overdrive to get the 30 Hormagaunts into easy charge range on round 2 and bring in the Mawloc at the same time.
8 CPs use 3 on the Stealers to fight twice+ 1 for Metabolic. and if need be use the fight twice on turn 2 as well. The Warrors and Swarmy are going to sit back hold objectives and fight deepstrikers
So all my Stealers and Guants get to reroll all misses and hopefully the Broodlord can help with anything they cant take down.
Now who and what my opponent does will cause me some headaches for sure. I am betting that I will take the brunt of the other 2 players retaliation so I hope to get some decent help from my efforts.
My experience in doubles tournaments is that you should specialize towards the strongest thing you do, and hope your partner can cover the gaps or synergies with your strengths. For example, Kraken stealers plus IG gun line, or 200 boys plus 200 'gaunts.
In your case, I would drop the warriors and focus on the 'stealers and horms. Run pure Kraken, play very forward aggressive, and hope you get a partner that can cover the backfield.
I recomend Swarmy + Malenthrope + as many 'stealers as you can fit. If you don't have a Malenthrope, then either Swarmy + Neurothrope + Venomthropes + 'stealers, or Swarmy + Broodlord + ''stealers.
The Malenthrope is better than the Neurothrope + Venoms. Giving up the -1 to hit to get some extra models with the Broodlord version is kind of a toss up. I would have to spend some time in battlescribe to decide which I prefer.
In all versions, trading out a unit of 'stealers for a unit of hormies is a matter of taste. My ideal version would be Swarmy, Mal, 20x 'stealers, '20x 'stealers, 30x hormies. I'm 90% certain you can't actually do that at 1000 points.
Your battle plan is to charge something with 20 'stealers turn 1, charge something with 20 more turn 2, and hope you have enough bodies left over to contribute to the battle on turns 3+. If you don't get a good target for turn 1 charges, use Swarmy to get himself closer, that way they have to pick between 4 high threat targets that will charge something turn 2. They will kill Smarmy + at least one infanty unit, then you smash face with what's left.
Don't get me wrong. As a 1000 point heads up list, I like your list. I just think that for doubles play you need to shift your thinking a bit.
I do have a Malanthrope...just not painted. I am borrowing a Swarmlord as it is. The Mawloc looks as bad as they say. It was always a pain for my MSU eldar lists....but agains Knightes, Dark Eldar vehicles and such I am not sure it has any value.
On a completely unrelated note, what have Tyranid players found to be most effective at countering Knights? My current list is only 1000 points so I haven't really geared it towards Knights since I rarely see them at that points level, but as my army grows, I know that there are definitely a few Knights in my meta that I could start facing on the battlefield.
I ran the numbers once on Hive Guard with Shock Cannons. Three full squads plus one double-firing averages something like 32 Mortal Wounds on a Knight, prior to any damage caused by the actual stats of the gun. If you play Jormungander (I do), you could Ravener them up and blow a Castellan away. I haven't felt the need to do that yet, but I like to know I have the option in my back pocket.
Against the shooty Knights I might try to lock them in combat with cheap stuff, and then fire Spore Mines nearby to block any potential escape path. Unlike superheavy tanks, Knights cant shoot out of combat.
omg I assumed that the Mawloc had 3 pairs of MASSIVE scything talons and even paid for them. Wow he can hardly dent a marine if he tries.
Still in my last game he did 10 mortal wounds to characters so that was fun. Somehow he survived the first 2 games. lol
Was a fun day of gaming. Swarmy was good but I wont use the one trick pony again.
HYDRA was amazing until I ran into Orks on my last tournmanent round I only had 1 fight all day that I did not get to use the rerolls.
Caustic blood on Hormaguants is great to take down Custodes haha
Mawlocs should be popping up and doing their mortal wound trick, then soaking up a bunch of firepower. If they’re still alive after that then you bully their backfield guns that can’t fight back.
Can someone tell me where in the faq this is? I can no longer find it.
I am asking about the Call the Brood Strat. I think...The one that brings in 5 genestealers. I read you had to pay for them out of reinforcement points. The faq clearly states you have to pay for the strat that brings in spore mines. I cannot find the one about the genestealers.
The reason I was wondering was the 3CP strat the Green Tide.(??) I was told they did not have to pay reinforcement points for their free models. That seems un consistent. Is that correct?
admironheart wrote: Can someone tell me where in the faq this is? I can no longer find it.
I am asking about the Call the Brood Strat. I think...The one that brings in 5 genestealers. I read you had to pay for them out of reinforcement points. The faq clearly states you have to pay for the strat that brings in spore mines. I cannot find the one about the genestealers.
The reason I was wondering was the 3CP strat the Green Tide.(??) I was told they did not have to pay reinforcement points for their free models. That seems un consistent. Is that correct?
You don't need a FAQ to tell you that you need to pay. You are setting up a new unit, so the general rule is that you have to pay.
Green tide does not set up a new unit, but removes one from the field and resets it to full strenght, so it doesn't pay.
admironheart wrote: Can someone tell me where in the faq this is? I can no longer find it.
I am asking about the Call the Brood Strat. I think...The one that brings in 5 genestealers. I read you had to pay for them out of reinforcement points. The faq clearly states you have to pay for the strat that brings in spore mines. I cannot find the one about the genestealers.
The reason I was wondering was the 3CP strat the Green Tide.(??) I was told they did not have to pay reinforcement points for their free models. That seems un consistent. Is that correct?
Its in the basic rule book FAQ, the commentary pages, and in Xeno's, Nids faqs, and many others. Also its noted in the actual rules that you pay for reinforcements.
ALL rules that adds a unit cost reinforcement points UNLESS otherwise noted, aka spores.
Rules that bring back models into units still left do not
FYI, the Sporefield stratagem is the worst stratagem in game, the community has asked for it to be change, its not meant for Match play, not all rules are for match some are there mostly for open/narrative. Spore field strat is literally pointless as FW spores HAS that rule already.
Eihnlazer wrote: Sporefield strat was fine like it was when the book came out if used like it was meant (i.e. for basic spore mines).
GW realized that it was a bit broken with the FW mines and kneejerk nerfed it.
No it wasnt, it was just as complained about and just as bad, again the FW spore HAS this rule, why spend the same points AND 3CP for the same thing? You literally are wasting 3 CP. And the Spore field was a formation from 7th, it was used in almost every nids list, that is the real "Knee jerk" decision, they saw how popular it was in 7th and like everything that was popular in 7th it was nerfed.
Eihnlazer wrote: Sporefield strat was fine like it was when the book came out if used like it was meant (i.e. for basic spore mines).
GW realized that it was a bit broken with the FW mines and kneejerk nerfed it.
No it wasnt, it was just as complained about and just as bad, again the FW spore HAS this rule, why spend the same points AND 3CP for the same thing? You literally are wasting 3 CP. And the Spore field was a formation from 7th, it was used in almost every nids list, that is the real "Knee jerk" decision, they saw how popular it was in 7th and like everything that was popular in 7th it was nerfed.
You really should take the time to read the posts you respond to.
Anyone tried spamming 3 units of 9 spore mines to take on a knight? If my math is right (might not be) that would be 27 mortal wounds on average assuming you get all 27 within exploding range.
You could use sporefield, pray for first turn, then double move a single unit of them into explode range. But it’s unlikely your opponent will let the others get near him after that. And spore mines are rather easy to kill. Meiotic Spores are better for that sort of thing anyway, since they do D3 a pop. But that’s 162 points for an average of 18 mortal wounds, only if you get first turn and your opponent doesn’t screen his knight.
Badablack wrote: You could use sporefield, pray for first turn, then double move a single unit of them into explode range. But it’s unlikely your opponent will let the others get near him after that. And spore mines are rather easy to kill. Meiotic Spores are better for that sort of thing anyway, since they do D3 a pop. But that’s 162 points for an average of 18 mortal wounds, only if you get first turn and your opponent doesn’t screen his knight.
And he forgets that he can save mortal wounds on 5+
Badablack wrote: You could use sporefield, pray for first turn, then double move a single unit of them into explode range. But it’s unlikely your opponent will let the others get near him after that. And spore mines are rather easy to kill. Meiotic Spores are better for that sort of thing anyway, since they do D3 a pop. But that’s 162 points for an average of 18 mortal wounds, only if you get first turn and your opponent doesn’t screen his knight.
And he forgets that he can save mortal wounds on 5+
Not as House Raven, isnt that Taranis household trait?
Badablack wrote: You could use sporefield, pray for first turn, then double move a single unit of them into explode range. But it’s unlikely your opponent will let the others get near him after that. And spore mines are rather easy to kill. Meiotic Spores are better for that sort of thing anyway, since they do D3 a pop. But that’s 162 points for an average of 18 mortal wounds, only if you get first turn and your opponent doesn’t screen his knight.
And he forgets that he can save mortal wounds on 5+
Not as House Raven, isnt that Taranis household trait?
It's the 'Benevolence Of The Machine God' stratagem, which any mechanicus house can use.
Badablack wrote: You could use sporefield, pray for first turn, then double move a single unit of them into explode range. But it’s unlikely your opponent will let the others get near him after that. And spore mines are rather easy to kill. Meiotic Spores are better for that sort of thing anyway, since they do D3 a pop. But that’s 162 points for an average of 18 mortal wounds, only if you get first turn and your opponent doesn’t screen his knight.
And he forgets that he can save mortal wounds on 5+
Not as House Raven, isnt that Taranis household trait?
It's the 'Benevolence Of The Machine God' stratagem, which any mechanicus house can use.
Oh damn. Never seen that one used before. Man the Mechanicus really did get all the good strats. Imperialis traditions are gak maybe hawkshroud, but you might as well pay 1 cp for top shelf.
Niiai wrote: Hi. Is there a breakdown of list archtypes of nid lists?
I mean they're mostly just buzzwords and at this point not really the same as they once were. Nidzilla used to be genuine Nidzilla, nothing more than mandatory minimum troops, and just maxed out Flyrants and Carnifexes. Things are a lot more balanced out now, even if you go slightly heavier on MC's you need a bunch of bodies and still want Hive Guard etc, at least in competitive play its by far the better call. Lictorshame isn't a thing anymore, and just spamming a unit in general isn't even an option or a good choice even if it was, 8th is more about taking a mixture of tools. Or maybe that's because of Ro3, hard to know, either way, these strong "archetypes" aren't really a thing. StealerShock used to be like literally nothing but Genestealers and some anti-tank, even that term has been tuned down into 2-3 units of Stealers + a Swarmlord.
I guess Horde and Nidzilla, StealerShock all have some meaning. Gunline isnt really competitive as we have some great shooting units but they generally come with diminishing returns but I guess it is an option. There's probably one or two of these that I'm forgetting. Is that what you were asking about?
I was more thinking of list examples, probably at warius point values.
If they do come i packages I suppose that is handy as well. A genestealer lists needs 40 genestealers and swarmlord for 730 points. That sort of thing.
Like what does a nidzilla army look like? What do you use as anti tank in such a list. Is it just 27 carnifexes with neuronthropes?
Niiai wrote: I was more thinking of list examples, probably at warius point values.
If they do come i packages I suppose that is handy as well. A genestealer lists needs 40 genestealers and swarmlord for 730 points. That sort of thing.
Like what does a nidzilla army look like? What do you use as anti tank in such a list. Is it just 27 carnifexes with neuronthropes?
Nidzilla is any list that runs close to pure monstrous creatures. 20ish Carnifexes with Neurothropes, Carnifiexes and Hive Tyrants, Tyrants and Trygons, so forth and so on. Classic nidzilla is Carnifex and Hive Tyrant heavy, because when it was invented Neurothropes didn't exist and Trygon's were a FW superheavy.
A modern casual and fluffy version would run walking Hive Tyrants, Trygons, Malanthropes, and Carnifexes, with lots of scything talons, bone swords, devourers, and venom cannons. Detachment wise it would likely be 3x3 heavy detachments, and likely look to either Jorgmr. for the +2 save or Leviathan for the FnP.
A competitive version of it would be built around twin devouerer armed Jorgmr. Carnifexes and Neurothropes, and likely run 2-3 squads of Hive Guard. At least two squads of the Hive Guard would be carrying shock cannons, with the expected use being to tunnel them in and alpha down a Knight. You can use a Trygon for this, in order to keep to the theme, but Raveners are much cheaper, and the Trygon will likely get killed before it can do anything besides deliver the Hive Guard. The third Hive Guard unit would be hanging out somewere out of LOS, using Impaler cannons and double tapping (because it is your only infantry shooting for the strat to go on besides the shock cannon guard) at 36". You would attempt to structure the army as twin Jorgmr. (because 2+ save Carnifexes) battalions (because CP), with 6 units of Rippers in the troops slots, and Neurothropes as the HQ. You are likely taking a broodlord (cheap) or flying Hive Tyrant (useful, can get the -1 to hit relic) as the 4th HQ.
It is possible to build a shooty Nidzilla army, based around Exocrines, acid spray Tyranofexes, and dakka Carnifexes. This build runs Malanthropes as HQs in order to help keep the Exocrines and Tyranofexes alive, and suffers because it can't absorb going second to a halfway decent shooting army. The detachment structure can get a bit weird, as you want to run a lot of HS choices. The build also really wants (a) Hive Guard and (b) to be both Kronos (Hive Guard and Exocrines) and Jorgmr. (T-fexes, Carnifexes, shock Hive Guard).
I mostly play cassual games. I do not like pickup games at the local club. If I run to competetive my opponent probably will only lose until he does the same. Stil it ss not bad to have that option if I ever play competetive.
The 'competetive list' you describe needs to be johrm for the delivery of the hive guards right? Othervice the list has no delivery system, and harder to reach brigade. I finaly wanted to have an official colouracheme so at some point I painted all my nids in the leviathan colours. I feel compelled to stick with them. A bit bad since behemot and jorm er the most competetive of them. Fornleviathan to pay off I need to engage the stratgem with flyers (well worth 1cp) or have synapse near the distraction carnifexes.
I was thinking of braching into GSC. The dozer truck seems like a good melee unit. And a squad that can charge from out of deepstrike also seems goo, vs a high prioraty target. There are also some good utilaty models. Like the sniper, the pistoler and the CP regaining one. But by then I might be diluting the army a bit.
I asume the only horde clearing weapon in the nidzilla army are devourers? (Perhaps the fleshborer hive?)
PS: Has anyone done any mathhammer on the varius shooting options after chapter aproved did the point decrease?
Depends on your meta, is it knight and anti-knight meta or not. If not Nids CA worked wonders for them via Tfex. Harpies are are good if you already take venoms/malanthropes otherwise still costly with the nature -1 to hit.
Nidzilia will take Devs for anti-horde, and a Tfex with Flamer, tho thats also really good to hit -1/-2 to hit Fly units as well.
Non-traditional Nidzilia can still play with smaller units like Pyrovores, Broodlords, etc.. if going for Brigade and all Rippers as troops (6x3) Rippers are in almost all fluff as clean up crews so it doesnt break fluff.
Fex spam is a thing, but sadly due to knights and anti-knights they die really fast, even if you do have 18-20 of them, you will lose 3 a turn easily if not more.
Niiai wrote: Thanx babelfish, that was very insightfull.
I mostly play cassual games. I do not like pickup games at the local club. If I run to competetive my opponent probably will only lose until he does the same. Stil it ss not bad to have that option if I ever play competetive.
The 'competetive list' you describe needs to be johrm for the delivery of the hive guards right? Othervice the list has no delivery system, and harder to reach brigade. I finaly wanted to have an official colouracheme so at some point I painted all my nids in the leviathan colours. I feel compelled to stick with them. A bit bad since behemot and jorm er the most competetive of them. Fornleviathan to pay off I need to engage the stratgem with flyers (well worth 1cp) or have synapse near the distraction carnifexes.
I was thinking of braching into GSC. The dozer truck seems like a good melee unit. And a squad that can charge from out of deepstrike also seems goo, vs a high prioraty target. There are also some good utilaty models. Like the sniper, the pistoler and the CP regaining one. But by then I might be diluting the army a bit.
I asume the only horde clearing weapon in the nidzilla army are devourers? (Perhaps the fleshborer hive?)
PS: Has anyone done any mathhammer on the varius shooting options after chapter aproved did the point decrease?
Small nitpick, kraken and jorgmdr are the most competative hive fleets. Jorgmdr because we have some really useful things to deep strike and the +1 save is a strong default trait. Kraken because mass Kraken genestealers are really good.
As far as fluff and painting go, being flexable and responding to change is one of the defining traits of Tyranids. A Leviathan force facing mass pskyers will evolve ways to kill pskyers (i.e., become Kronos). It is rare to run into a non-tyranid player who can tell the hive fleets apart, much less cares if your paint scheme matches the fleet rules. TLDR, dont worry too much about it, do what makes you happy.
GSC has some interesting tools. They have a block of useful characters, and several ways to deliver powerful CC units. I recomend you look at saw equipped Acolytes. A 20 man unit with max saws with the correct character support can get a all but guaranteed charge out of deep strike and can kill a knight on the charge. The build that enables it costs around 800 points, which gives you room for lots of monster's on the bug side.
Is there an 'established' build that dies it? The 800 GSC that is.
From what I understand there are some ways to get there. From abberants to the mining troops. Some amount of varius support characters from primus to magus. Even the banner guy.
Also, there is some discussion about what cult. Twisted helix for S. Four armed emperor for the safer charge and counterspell. Pauper princes for hitting. Rusted claw for survivabilaty afterwards. Even bladed cog has that stratagem that lets them generate new attacks on an unmodefied 5+ vs knight. (Also good with sniper and mining lasers.)
I sometimes swap Reaper + Deathleaper for 3 Pyrovores, now that they are so cheap and have ok synergy with Kraken (they can advance and shoot and be annoying in cc).
So apparently Tyranids are worse than Space Marines right now....
How can this be?
That is looking at primary factions. So if someone takes Girlyman with 3 leviathon dreads... then fills 2 battalions with AM and Admech... well their primary faction may still technically be Adeptus Astartes. This faction stuff is hard to figure out when anything Imperium has access to 15 codexes.
So apparently Tyranids are worse than Space Marines right now....
How can this be?
That is looking at primary factions. So if someone takes Girlyman with 3 leviathon dreads... then fills 2 battalions with AM and Admech... well their primary faction may still technically be Adeptus Astartes. This faction stuff is hard to figure out when anything Imperium has access to 15 codexes.
Agreed, but you usually don't see soup Nids, maybe GSC/Nids.
Niiai wrote: Is there an 'established' build that dies it? The 800 GSC that is.
From what I understand there are some ways to get there. From abberants to the mining troops. Some amount of varius support characters from primus to magus. Even the banner guy.
Also, there is some discussion about what cult. Twisted helix for S. Four armed emperor for the safer charge and counterspell. Pauper princes for hitting. Rusted claw for survivabilaty afterwards. Even bladed cog has that stratagem that lets them generate new attacks on an unmodefied 5+ vs knight. (Also good with sniper and mining lasers.)
So if you are going to soup in GSC you have to look at what they bring that you don't already have.
The shooting builds that GSC players are excited about don't mesh well with Tyranids, because you already have ways to get almost everything they bring, and don't want to spend 3/4 of your points chasing the synergies that make the pure GSC shooting builds interesting.
In particular, shooting wise, GSC and bugs can both bring substantial amounts of reasonably durable anti-infantry (cultist blobs, mortor teams, devourers on gaunts/tyrants/Carnifexes, biovores) and decent anti-medium tank shhoting (mining lasers, hive guard, demo charges, hive guard, exocrines). Both lack good heavy anti tank shooting. GSC has some ability to bring Guard as a solution, Tyranids have shock cannon Hive Guard. GSC does have a pair of very solid snipers, something Tyranids lack, and the Kellermorph, who fills a similar target characters role.
The big thing Tyranids lack that GSC can provide is the ability to counter the IG+ Knight builds. My preferred version is a Cult of the Four Armed Emperor battalion. I see the argument for the +1S from Twisted Helix, but I think that having the dent strat as an option and threat is more important. In a pure GSC force I would run my big assault units as Twisted Helix and a small detachment as C4AE. Souping doesn't permit that luxury, so C4AE it is.
The key parts are:
20 Hybrids with Banner and 8x Saws. Big punching unit, lots of high S attacks. Can deep strike and move d6 inches using a stratagem, then charge. Used for deleting knights. Costs ~230 points.
Patriarch. HQ, deep strikes, brings two very useful powers: might from beyond (+1S and A on the Hybrids) and mental onslaught, the leadership roll of for mortal wounds that has everyone losing their minds. Needs to bring at least one familiar so he can cast both the turn he lands. ~135 points.
Primus. HQ, deep strikes. Reroll 1's to the Hybrids the turn he lands. 75 points.
Magus. HQ. Brings a no overwatch power and enables giving all three of the HQ's a warlord trait via the Broodcoven stratagem. Very useful. 80 points.
Two units of Neophytes. Cheap troops to fill in the battalion. Around 70 points depending on if you try to make them useful by giving them lasers. Stand on objectives or screen.
Clamavus. Elite. +1 charge bubble (so 1d6+2 out of the deep strike for the Hybrids). Leadership buff bubble, synergizes with the Patriarch for Ld11 mental onslaught. 55 points.
This gives you a nasty deep strike and murder unit that cannot be ignored. With the various characters, it costs just over 800 points. You also get access to a strong cc threat and one of the nastiest spells in the fame on the Patriarch.
It is worth thinking about adding in a Kellermorph, a Nexos and a Sancutus. At around 60 each, they provide character removal and CP regen that Tyranids otherwise struggle to get. I would personally run all three, and use the 1050 or so remaining points on sweet sweet genestealers.
Oh, is that what the established list looks like. ^_^
Yeha, I agree there are some cool things in there, that will make sence in most lists and as natural inclusions. I think you are going a bit over board. The primus and Clamavus seems redundant. There is little for them to do once all the 20 hybrids gets wiped out. (And they will.)
Neophytes does little that ripper swarms do not already do. What you want from GSC is mostly a unit of Hybrids and some elite choises. Patriarch and Magus for some cool psykick powers and more snipe.
I've been wanting to play Nids for a long time but never got around to do it. Now I've bought a Flyrant and the Start collecting set.
Since Nids are for me all about the looks I don't want any Nids in my army holding guns or swords. This thus leaves Talons and claws mostly. As playing style I would like them to be as heavy CC as possible with a lot of Deeptstrik 'tunneling' pressure.
I am thinking of fielding the following. Could you please advice me where to go from here?
- Flyrant
- Broodlord
- Large unit genestealers
- 2 small units Hormagaunts
- 2 Trygons
- 2 Melee fexes
- Screamer Killer
Genestealers are amazing, for sure get some, they are our best melee troop units. More Flyrants are good, an OOE (Old One Eye) or Broodlords are good too.
I would for sure get in order of importance
More Genestealers (you want at least 1 max unit)
Tyrant Kit (either Swarmlord or another flyrant)
Hgants (need more troops)
OOE (melee anti-tank, he is amazing)
Bc you are focusing on melee for right now, you really want more Genestealers, Swarmlord and OOE, Hgants as troop fillers and fast screens.
B.c you already have a Broodlord there is no need to get another one, they are good, but not more genestealer/ooe/swarmlord/tyrant good.
I've been wanting to play Nids for a long time but never got around to do it. Now I've bought a Flyrant and the Start collecting set.
Since Nids are for me all about the looks I don't want any Nids in my army holding guns or swords. This thus leaves Talons and claws mostly. As playing style I would like them to be as heavy CC as possible with a lot of Deeptstrik 'tunneling' pressure.
I am thinking of fielding the following. Could you please advice me where to go from here?
- Flyrant
- Broodlord
- Large unit genestealers
- 2 small units Hormagaunts
- 2 Trygons
- 2 Melee fexes
- Screamer Killer
Conventional wisdom would say Hive Guard and Swarmlord are the competitive picks lacking from your list, but those are obviously out for you. I'd say that you have a fairly comprehensive list of units without guns and swords already, lacking only really certain big monsters (Haruspex, Toxicrene, Maleceptor, etc.), Zoanthropes, Venomthropes, and Raveners. The big monsters are a pass, lacking good rules at the moment. The rest are pretty good. Zoanthropes add some smite, although you should have enough with your HQs. Venomthropes are good, and will help you not get torn apart by shooting, which is an issue without an ability to take out tanks and other big threats reliably, especially if your opponent wraps them with chaff (which everyone does these days). I might go for a Malanthrope instead, as it is a character. And I like Raveners, although they're solidly mid tier in this codex.
So as for what to get, I'd say your order is:
1) Another Flyrant
2) Another 20 man blob of Stealers
3) A Malanthrope/Venomthropes
And then much further down the line Raveners, and perhaps Zoanthropes if you feel you want more smite.
Judging by the looks of the models I guess I will add the following:
- Malanthrope (my most favorite Nid model)
- Old One Eye (can he be made from the Carnifex kit?)
- More Genestealers
Why should I include a second Flyrant? I think they are horribly expensive. And how to kit them out, should I excuse myself and get Twin linked devourers for him just because a 100% melee oriented Flyrant will not work?
I've been wanting to play Nids for a long time but never got around to do it. Now I've bought a Flyrant and the Start collecting set.
Since Nids are for me all about the looks I don't want any Nids in my army holding guns or swords. This thus leaves Talons and claws mostly. As playing style I would like them to be as heavy CC as possible with a lot of Deeptstrik 'tunneling' pressure.
I am thinking of fielding the following. Could you please advice me where to go from here?
- Flyrant
- Broodlord
- Large unit genestealers
- 2 small units Hormagaunts
- 2 Trygons
- 2 Melee fexes
- Screamer Killer
I think I have some bad news for you. Tyranids strenght comes from being a little good at everything, both melee and shooting, so you will need some guns at some point.
Flyrants are good, either with two sett of guns, or one sett guns and melee weapons. Broodlords are OK, not super duper. Genstealer heavy lists can be good, it is a good unit, but you need The Swarmlord ideally.
The rest are not so good. Hormogaunts are good at tying things up on melee, but not kill them. Trygaons are good for delivery, but they die very easaly and they do not like powerfist like weapons. Melee fexes are called a distraction carnifex. It is a unit that is such a threath that it needs to be dealth with before it reaches your lines, and they can operate independently. But you need to preasure the opponent so it gets there. Screamer killers, while cool, are just worse fexes.
For melee I would paint them up in your own colours and do a count as Kraken.
6+++ does not help a lot. But actually advancing fast helps. Also, you can disengage and charge sometbing else. Something that is very good on genstealers and flying hive tyrants.
Niiai wrote: 6+++ does not help a lot. But actually advancing fast helps. Also, you can disengage and charge sometbing else. Something that is very good on genstealers and flying hive tyrants.
I agree with this. If you can trap a model (ie surround it so it can't fall back) then your unit cant get shot at on the opp turn then fall back and assault again or another unit.
Yep, a 6+++ is all well and good.
However charging across the table on turn 1, murdering a unit, then taking another unit hostage so you can't be shot at the following turn. That's a much better defensive bonus.
Niiai wrote: Oh, is that what the established list looks like. ^_^
Yeha, I agree there are some cool things in there, that will make sence in most lists and as natural inclusions. I think you are going a bit over board. The primus and Clamavus seems redundant. There is little for them to do once all the 20 hybrids gets wiped out. (And they will.)
Neophytes does little that ripper swarms do not already do. What you want from GSC is mostly a unit of Hybrids and some elite choises. Patriarch and Magus for some cool psykick powers and more snipe.
Well, I mean, the established list is still shaking out, and I think it will take a few major events before we really get a good feel for how GSC works as an independent army. That is more the key parts I think work well to support a Tyranid army. I agree that the core thing you want from GSC is the Hybrid unit. After that I think it is kind of a toss up on if you want the extra reliability from the Primus/Clamavus, the extra punch from the Patriarch, the spells, or the useful elites. I'm personally most fond of Patriarch + Magus + Clamavus + Hybrids + Kellermorph, on the logic that the entire detachment is a suicide bomb, Hybrids + Patriarch + Clamavus give you pretty good bang (Ld 11 + the Horror is a three point swing and can autokill several units when casting), and the Kellermorph is to awesome to not stick a cowboy hat on and play every chance you can.
The Neophytes make your GSC detachment a Battalion. The detachment wants to use a lot of CP, Neophytes are cheap and can occupy backfield space. Your comment did get me thinking about using min squads of flamer Hybrids instead, because they are very much a Ripper equivalent and they are almost comically good at countering Ripper equivalent units, if you are willing to spend the CP. The idea would be to hold them in reserve, then deep strike them next to a Ripper like unit of backfield objective campers using the strat that lets them get close enough to shoot but not charge, then 5d6 S3 flamer hits and potentially also contest the objective. If you somehow have 4 CP and a Magus left at the end of the game you could summon them instead. I doubt the situation will occur very frequently, but Summon Hybrids >>> Land 3" Away >>> Kill Unit >>> Claim Objective >>> Get Linebreaker >>> Win Game would be hilarious.
I've been wanting to play Nids for a long time but never got around to do it. Now I've bought a Flyrant and the Start collecting set.
Since Nids are for me all about the looks I don't want any Nids in my army holding guns or swords. This thus leaves Talons and claws mostly. As playing style I would like them to be as heavy CC as possible with a lot of Deeptstrik 'tunneling' pressure.
I am thinking of fielding the following. Could you please advice me where to go from here?
- Flyrant
- Broodlord
- Large unit genestealers
- 2 small units Hormagaunts
- 2 Trygons
- 2 Melee fexes
- Screamer Killer
Well, I suggest you go for Hive Fleet Jormangandr, and get some Ravagers. They are a nice assault unit that Tunnels, and Jormangandr can use a Strat to bring units along. No shooty at all is a tough row to hoe. But Stealers popping out of tunnels is a doable thing. Add some Rippers to grab Objectives and maybe some CC kitted Warriors for Synapse...and see how it goes.
I've been wanting to play Nids for a long time but never got around to do it. Now I've bought a Flyrant and the Start collecting set.
Since Nids are for me all about the looks I don't want any Nids in my army holding guns or swords. This thus leaves Talons and claws mostly. As playing style I would like them to be as heavy CC as possible with a lot of Deeptstrik 'tunneling' pressure.
I am thinking of fielding the following. Could you please advice me where to go from here?
- Flyrant
- Broodlord
- Large unit genestealers
- 2 small units Hormagaunts
- 2 Trygons
- 2 Melee fexes
- Screamer Killer
Hmm, if i went for a claws/talons only list then i would probably point to a jormungard high durability slow list. Bring a brigade so that you have lots of CPs to deepstrike stuff from raveners. Then take everything as cheap as possible like:
- Double talon fexes
- Lictors
- Pyrovores
- Double talon warriors
- Mawloc
- Red Terror
- Deathleaper
- Walkrants
- Malanthrope
- Venomthropes
- Zoanthropes
- Rippers
Cheap models with high durability. Play for the long game, you want to outlast him. This is a kind of list that after 3 shooting phases suffered, it is still alive and dangerous. Don't try to out alpha your opponents, that is something that you do with guns. Use your Jorm trait to its max effect, use The Horror to debuff the biggest threats. Disrupt as much as possible with Lictors, Mawlocs and Deathleaper. Don't try the turn 2 charge from ravener deep strike if you really can't wait. You want your raveners and warriors to stand there with the +1 save and then go after them in turn 3 with a guaranteed charge.
I wouldn't suggest using genestealers. Those guys are great, but require a lot of support to do what they have to do, or they will die a horrible and extremely costly death. Without a swarmlord or guns to clear screens, they cannot work. It's an hammer without an anvil. They cost a lot, if you bring them you must make sure that they can reach the intended target, if they are sent against ork boyz, guards, cultists or even transports, then you have lost them and probably the game with them.
What's up, everyone? Due to some personal/family issues I've been out of the game (minus a few games at a friend's house) for basically a year. I'm getting back in and am not sure where our army is right now. My collection is below; I'm wondering if I can build a semi-competitive/don't get tabled list for the current state of the game with it?
2 Hive Tyrants One wit LW/BS and HVC, one with wings, but no other arms attached yet
1 Tervigon w/Crushing Claws
2 Broodlords
10 Warriors, various loadouts
44 Genestealers
41 Hormagaunts
25 Termagants, some w/devourers, but I don't remember how many
29 Gargoyles
1 Lictor (usually use as Deathleaper)
3 Zoanthropes
1 Biovore w/2 mines
2 Trygons
4 Carnifexes, 1 w/dual ST, 1 w/ST and Crushing Claws, 1 w/Claws and HVC, and 1 with 2 devourers and 2 open arm slots
whirlwindstruggle wrote: What do people's Old One Eye/Swarmlord combo armies look like composition-wise?
I play a Swarmlord, OOE combo when i play nids. I love those 2 units and it works great with my massive Genestealers as well.
Its for sure an all or nothing list tho. You need more threats on the table. Thats why i take 2 units of stealers over 1, and i take 2 Flyrants as well.
Spend 1100 pts on a gunline. Your choice. Hive guard, Exocrines, Tyrannofexes, carnifexes with heavy venom cannons, you name it. Add a Malanthrope as one of your HQs.
Then for the remaining 900 pts pick one of the following.
1. 2 Tervigons and 3x30 termagants with 10 devourers each. Make them Leviathan. 90 termatangs with -1 to hit and 6+++. They need to kill all 30 in a turn, because if one survives they're becoming 21 again the next turn. Hide one of the tervigons, make the other warlord with adaptive biology. Stick close to the malanthrope. Enjoy yout immortal troop horde with rerolls 1's on hits and wounds and can replenish itself every turn.
2. Make the "big wall of the mind". 3x6 zoanthropes plus 2 neurothropes. That's 20 bodies with 3 wounds each and a 3++. Make them also leviathan for an extra save, because why wouldn't you? Make a big line of them in front of your gunline. Shoot with 3+d3 mortal wound smites at 24", rerolling 1's and healing them with the neurothrope smites.
Spend 1100 pts on a gunline. Your choice. Hive guard, Exocrines, Tyrannofexes, carnifexes with heavy venom cannons, you name it. Add a Malanthrope as one of your HQs.
Then for the remaining 900 pts pick one of the following.
1. 2 Tervigons and 3x30 termagants with 10 devourers each. Make them Leviathan. 90 termatangs with -1 to hit and 6+++. They need to kill all 30 in a turn, because if one survives they're becoming 21 again the next turn. Hide one of the tervigons, make the other warlord with adaptive biology. Stick close to the malanthrope. Enjoy yout immortal troop horde with rerolls 1's on hits and wounds and can replenish itself every turn.
2. Make the "big wall of the mind". 3x6 zoanthropes plus 2 neurothropes. That's 20 bodies with 3 wounds each and a 3++. Make them also leviathan for an extra save, because why wouldn't you? Make a big line of them in front of your gunline. Shoot with 3+d3 mortal wound smites at 24", rerolling 1's and healing them with the neurothrope smites.
Spend 1100 pts on a gunline. Your choice. Hive guard, Exocrines, Tyrannofexes, carnifexes with heavy venom cannons, you name it. Add a Malanthrope as one of your HQs.
Then for the remaining 900 pts pick one of the following.
1. 2 Tervigons and 3x30 termagants with 10 devourers each. Make them Leviathan. 90 termatangs with -1 to hit and 6+++. They need to kill all 30 in a turn, because if one survives they're becoming 21 again the next turn. Hide one of the tervigons, make the other warlord with adaptive biology. Stick close to the malanthrope. Enjoy yout immortal troop horde with rerolls 1's on hits and wounds and can replenish itself every turn.
2. Make the "big wall of the mind". 3x6 zoanthropes plus 2 neurothropes. That's 20 bodies with 3 wounds each and a 3++. Make them also leviathan for an extra save, because why wouldn't you? Make a big line of them in front of your gunline. Shoot with 3+d3 mortal wound smites at 24", rerolling 1's and healing them with the neurothrope smites.
I keep trying to get players to do a very with SM, 7 Drop pods start on the table, then you have 3 Thunderfire Cannons and Whirlwinds, all filled with Scouts, and finally Loyal 32 with as many Mortars and 3 Basilisks.
IDK why no one wants to do it....
If nids Drop pods (Tyrannocytes) did float 3" off the ground and blocked LoS i so would do it with them, Hive Guard, Biovores, Sporocytes, etc.. LOL
Battlesong wrote: What's up, everyone? Due to some personal/family issues I've been out of the game (minus a few games at a friend's house) for basically a year. I'm getting back in and am not sure where our army is right now.
Currently the army is more infantry-centric than it used to be, with a lot of builds focusing on Genestealers and Hive Guard as the main damage dealers with the rest of the army acting in support (Swarmlord is fairly common to sling 'stealers up the board).
I think there is a lot of room to explore though. Chapter Approved reduced the costs on all of the large monsters (Tervigon, Tyrannofex, Haruspex, Exocrine, Harpy, Hive Crone, Malceptor, Toxicrine, Trygon indirectly) and if GSC and Orks continue to do well we may see a shift away from heavy anti-armor (intended for dealing with Knights) and more anti-horde which would be favorable for the larger creatures.
My collection is below; I'm wondering if I can build a semi-competitive/don't get tabled list for the current state of the game with it?
2 Hive Tyrants One wit LW/BS and HVC, one with wings, but no other arms attached yet
1 Tervigon w/Crushing Claws
2 Broodlords
10 Warriors, various loadouts
44 Genestealers
41 Hormagaunts
25 Termagants, some w/devourers, but I don't remember how many
29 Gargoyles
1 Lictor (usually use as Deathleaper)
3 Zoanthropes
1 Biovore w/2 mines
2 Trygons
4 Carnifexes, 1 w/dual ST, 1 w/ST and Crushing Claws, 1 w/Claws and HVC, and 1 with 2 devourers and 2 open arm slots
I look forward to the advice.
Your best bet is probably going to be a Kraken detachment with all of the fast units you can fit in (Brood Lords, Winged Tyrant, Genestealers, Hormagaunts, Gargoyles) and a supporting Jormungandr detachment with the walking Tyrant, Carnifexes, Biovores, and Warriors (could include the Termagants as well if you wanted to do a Devourer bomb with one of the Trygons). Trygons could go in either detachment, though of the two I'd lean towards Jormungandr since it helps improve their durability and they can be used as an entry point for any units you might wish to set aside using their signature stratagem.
If you can, you might want to re-fit the Tervigon with Massive Scything Talons instead of the Massive Crushing Claws. The standard talons are more reliable in virtually every respect.
Hey all, it has been a very long time since I've played with my Tyranids, having shelved them in 5th edition and I'd like to see whether my models have any viability to make an okay list from.
1 Hive Tyrant (on foot) not optimal, but great with a venom cannon or devourers.
4 Zoanthropes A fine smiter unit.
2 Carnifexes Yes. Mind you all the parts have special rules.
3 Hive Guard Even more yes.
Deathleaper Cheap object grabber.
10 Gargoyles Good for grabbing objectives.No longer gives things behind cover save.
6 Warriors A descent unit. Not topp tier, but not everything can be.
1 Broodlord Good
16 Genestealers A+
16 Hormagaunts Good for tying up units and harras but not for killing.
16 Termagants (all devourers) Dangerus.
4 Ripper bases Good fro grabbing objectives.
1 Tyrant guard Sadly comes in groups of 3 minimum without a CP handicap. Although cna be worth -1 CP.
All in all it is a great starting point. Get some games inn. Remember infantery shooting twice and a unit fighting twice is our bread and butter stratagems.
Strat_N8 wrote: Currently the army is more infantry-centric than it used to be, with a lot of builds focusing on Genestealers and Hive Guard as the main damage dealers with the rest of the army acting in support (Swarmlord is fairly common to sling 'stealers up the board).
I think there is a lot of room to explore though. Chapter Approved reduced the costs on all of the large monsters (Tervigon, Tyrannofex, Haruspex, Exocrine, Harpy, Hive Crone, Malceptor, Toxicrine, Trygon indirectly) and if GSC and Orks continue to do well we may see a shift away from heavy anti-armor (intended for dealing with Knights) and more anti-horde which would be favorable for the larger creatures.
Cool, thanks for the advice. I hope it gets to that point as I'm a fan of Nidzilla. Interesting that we can use our infantry in any case.
Strat_N8 wrote: Your best bet is probably going to be a Kraken detachment with all of the fast units you can fit in (Brood Lords, Winged Tyrant, Genestealers, Hormagaunts, Gargoyles) and a supporting Jormungandr detachment with the walking Tyrant, Carnifexes, Biovores, and Warriors (could include the Termagants as well if you wanted to do a Devourer bomb with one of the Trygons). Trygons could go in either detachment, though of the two I'd lean towards Jormungandr since it helps improve their durability and they can be used as an entry point for any units you might wish to set aside using their signature stratagem.
If you can, you might want to re-fit the Tervigon with Massive Scything Talons instead of the Massive Crushing Claws. The standard talons are more reliable in virtually every respect.
I can definitlely work with that. I forgot to mention that I have an Exocrine as well, so that can go in the Jormy detachment. Should be an interesting way to run the things.
Old One Eye plus 3 units of 3 Carnifex. Buy them all adrenal glands, tusks and spore cysts. Then in every unit of 3 take 2 carnifex with double scything and 1 with scything/crushing. Give them all bone maces just because. Make them all Kraken because fall back + charge with mortal wounds and +1 to hit.
Then field them right out in the open, at the very edge of your deployment zone, look your opponent in the eye and tell them "do you hear the ground tremble?"
On the plus side, you're left with like 850 pts to make a battalion of anything really.
So, yeah. 10 carnifex. Because if you own any less, you are bad and you should feel bad.
10 Kraken meleefex running straight at you while you have 20 warriors and a malanthrope in the backfield. A full unit of warriors and a prime in deep strike with some ravenors ready to walk in and double tap on someones face with 21 heavy bolter shots and 3 venom cannons before charging them with 33 bonesword attacks hitting on 2's.
Because the deep strike threat is so nasty, they will not be able to spread out their forces much to take out your warriors, and not many armies will be able to kill more than 3 carnifex's a turn anyway. Very nasty list if you get first turn.
So there was a second post from the same user who created a breakdown to account for soup or combo lists and also by mono codex. Overall Nids didn't end up as bad as the first graph made it seem. They may have had a few players who did worse but their average as a whole they were mid tier for mono codex. They even had some outliers do a lot better than the majority of the tyranid players. chaos was way more swingy than nids and GK well, theyre GK
10 Kraken meleefex running straight at you while you have 20 warriors and a malanthrope in the backfield. A full unit of warriors and a prime in deep strike with some ravenors ready to walk in and double tap on someones face with 21 heavy bolter shots and 3 venom cannons before charging them with 33 bonesword attacks hitting on 2's.
Because the deep strike threat is so nasty, they will not be able to spread out their forces much to take out your warriors, and not many armies will be able to kill more than 3 carnifex's a turn anyway. Very nasty list if you get first turn.
Why go cheap on me after the halftime? What about a battalion of 3 hive tyrants with melee weapons and rippers for the troops? And for the rest of the points, just put mini carnifex, aka tyrant guard.
Wouldn't call it cheap. Every model has at least 3 wounds. You could definitely take 3 hive tyrants and get psychic support and keep T7. It's also an easier to build army model wise, as I don't know anyone with 20 warriors, but I'd say the list I posted is more IMPRESSIVE looking on the table, and far more durable againgst mortal wound spam, which is a thing.
So there was a second post from the same user who created a breakdown to account for soup or combo lists and also by mono codex. Overall Nids didn't end up as bad as the first graph made it seem. They may have had a few players who did worse but their average as a whole they were mid tier for mono codex. They even had some outliers do a lot better than the majority of the tyranid players. chaos was way more swingy than nids and GK well, theyre GK
Neither of those charts should be really taken as measure of anything. The first one for obvious reason. The second one, well that is a list of the 20 MOST COMMON faction combinations for starters, so that excludes a lot of things. Hence why Marines for example are on there twice, but Harlequins don't even appear. It's a weird chart that isn't really a great place to draw any direct conclusions of anything. Not that I disagree or agree with anything up there, I just don't think it's an accurate measure.
Eihnlazer wrote: Wouldn't call it cheap. Every model has at least 3 wounds. You could definitely take 3 hive tyrants and get psychic support and keep T7. It's also an easier to build army model wise, as I don't know anyone with 20 warriors, but I'd say the list I posted is more IMPRESSIVE looking on the table, and far more durable againgst mortal wound spam, which is a thing.
Well I have 37 warriors but only 6 carnifex. Gotta pump those numbers up, these are rookie numbers! Can't even play the list I suggested.
I love warriors, but I would play them Leviathan rather than Kraken. 6+++ does wonders against reapers and their 3 wound guns.
I am curious as to how to fight a semi mechanized/ semi horde ork list.
Asking for my brother as I am the Ork player he plays. I have just decimated his list the last 2 games (turn 2 concede). Didn't know what he could do to help even the odds.
mhalko1 wrote: I am curious as to how to fight a semi mechanized/ semi horde ork list.
Asking for my brother as I am the Ork player he plays. I have just decimated his list the last 2 games (turn 2 concede). Didn't know what he could do to help even the odds.
What does your brother run in his list?
The first thing that jumps to mind is using Tyrannofexes with Acid Spray. It's an 18" flamer that starts at S7 AP-1 and D3 damage per roll; plus it gets to double-tap if the Tyrannofex hasn't moved that turn. Seems like a pretty decent weapon to use against both Ork Hordes and their light vehicles.
The classic Dakkafex should also help him out with 24 S6 shots per turn, usually hitting on 3+ when he takes Enhanced Senses.
Also, there's the Trygon + 30 Termagaunts with Devourers combo. Stash them in reserve and then on Turn 2, the Trygon pops up and delivers the Termagaunts. There's a stratagem that allows Tryranid infantry to shoot twice so that's 180 S4 shots headed towards your Boyz, re-rolling 1's to hit. Mathematically speaking, that's about 55 saves he'd force one of your mobs to make.
mhalko1 wrote: I am curious as to how to fight a semi mechanized/ semi horde ork list.
Asking for my brother as I am the Ork player he plays. I have just decimated his list the last 2 games (turn 2 concede). Didn't know what he could do to help even the odds.
What does your brother run in his list?
The first thing that jumps to mind is using Tyrannofexes with Acid Spray. It's an 18" flamer that starts at S7 AP-1 and D3 damage per roll; plus it gets to double-tap if the Tyrannofex hasn't moved that turn. Seems like a pretty decent weapon to use against both Ork Hordes and their light vehicles.
The classic Dakkafex should also help him out with 24 S6 shots per turn, usually hitting on 3+ when he takes Enhanced Senses.
Also, there's the Trygon + 30 Termagaunts with Devourers combo. Stash them in reserve and then on Turn 2, the Trygon pops up and delivers the Termagaunts. There's a stratagem that allows Tryranid infantry to shoot twice so that's 180 S4 shots headed towards your Boyz, re-rolling 1's to hit. Mathematically speaking, that's about 55 saves he'd force one of your mobs to make.
He he has the trygon devourer combo. runs a couple of carnifexes, swarmlord, neurothrope, genestealers venomthropes. But i have been 1 shotting the carnifexes with high damage weapons.
mhalko1 wrote: I am curious as to how to fight a semi mechanized/ semi horde ork list.
Asking for my brother as I am the Ork player he plays. I have just decimated his list the last 2 games (turn 2 concede). Didn't know what he could do to help even the odds.
My main opponent these days runs Orks. I do not get many games in, but they are veyr funn. Usualy Nids are good in CC, but not here. Also, the vehicles he has are T8, that can be a pain and though in CC.
Also, the boys with da jump, and the regroup startagem is hard.
I would sugets having some good ranged anti tank. Have some creening units for da jump. Flyrants are great, and he hates them. The mobilaty also helps.
At a very rough estimate, excluding the birthing pods you've got about 1700 points there. The scratch built birthing pods, I don't really know about those. You could possibly use them as tyrannocytes (tyranid drop pods) I guess. Those things start at about 100 points, and go way up depending on what you arm them with. They're also not spectacularly useful. You already have a couple of trygons to use to deepstrike infantry with, and don't have anything else really worth putting in them.
You've got a pretty good core of an army. But I'd say it needs to be rounded out a bit to reach 2k.
So in about a month, I'll be participating in my first ever GT! I'm pretty excited for this event since it's been a long-time dream to attend a large 40K tournament that's not run out of my FLGS. I'm not gunning for a Top-10 finish or anything, simply looking for some enjoyable and memorable games with an army list that's unique and fun to play.
With that being said, my list is below. It is, what I would consider to be, solidly "semi-competitive". My goal for this list was to essentially just run big, scary monsters which means that I sacrificed some more competitive options for the sake of fluff and theme. For example, no Hive Guard - they are infantry and therefore have no place in my army. Also, no Devilguants popping up with my Trygons because, they are infantry. Same with Genestealers getting slingshotted up the field by my Swarmlord. With the exception of a unit of spore mines, I am running pure, organic, locally-grown monsters.
However, I am still a new Tyranid player, so I wanted to pick the brains of the veterans out there for some more tactical advice. Things like, should my Flyrants be set up on the field or in deep strike? What psychic powers should I be taking and how distributed should they be? If I face a Knight army, how do I make it past Turn 2? etc. I am well beyond the "switching out units" part of army building and looking more at the "use what I have" part of army building.
Thanks for any and all advice!
Hive Fleet: Behemoth
Total Points: 2000 on the nose
Total Command Points: 5
Total Units to Deploy: 11
Spearhead Detachment HQ 1) Hive Tyrant with Wings: Adrenal Glands, Lash Whip and Monstrous Bone Sword, Monstrous Scything Talons, Toxin Sacs
- Relic: Reaper of Obliterax
- Warlord Trait: Monstrous Hunger (Behemoth Trait)
Oh my. Trygons are gonne die hard. Probably after the swarmlord.
But oh well. The list is the list.
Do you know what the missions are? Playing the missions is key. Knights can kill you all day, it does not matter as long as you winn the mission.
I would also advice you to learn to play fast. This includes moving figures and rolling dice, knowing the rules etc. But the hardest desissions for you will also eat up a lot of time. So get some games in with your army beforehand.
If you face long ranged firepower (and you will) they will kill your units by prioraties. That probably means the flyrants and swarmlord will die as they are high threat targets. Since they will be focused the tyranofexes will be ignored. (T8 3+ save.) Trygons die easy to power fist weapons. But they are safer in close combat then not, as they can not be shot then.
Use the swarmlord while he is alive to reach high prioraty targets with flyrants and trygons.
Genestealers usually. The thing is you cant do what you normally do with the stealers.
Most competitive Death guard players stick their PM's in a rhino at the start of the game until they think they can get out and grenade something to death.
Kill their screens and then have a squad of genestealers surround the rhino and take it out, killing all of them at once when they cant disembark. Most units have a hard time completely wrapping a vehicle properly to do so, but genestealers can.
Note that you have to place your stealers about .9" (or have 2 layers) away from the rhino and all the way around it to take out the squad of plagebearers when it goes down.
orchewer wrote: So in about a month, I'll be participating in my first ever GT! I'm pretty excited for this event since it's been a long-time dream to attend a large 40K tournament that's not run out of my FLGS. I'm not gunning for a Top-10 finish or anything, simply looking for some enjoyable and memorable games with an army list that's unique and fun to play.
With that being said, my list is below. It is, what I would consider to be, solidly "semi-competitive". My goal for this list was to essentially just run big, scary monsters which means that I sacrificed some more competitive options for the sake of fluff and theme. For example, no Hive Guard - they are infantry and therefore have no place in my army. Also, no Devilguants popping up with my Trygons because, they are infantry. Same with Genestealers getting slingshotted up the field by my Swarmlord. With the exception of a unit of spore mines, I am running pure, organic, locally-grown monsters.
However, I am still a new Tyranid player, so I wanted to pick the brains of the veterans out there for some more tactical advice. Things like, should my Flyrants be set up on the field or in deep strike? What psychic powers should I be taking and how distributed should they be? If I face a Knight army, how do I make it past Turn 2? etc. I am well beyond the "switching out units" part of army building and looking more at the "use what I have" part of army building.
Thanks for any and all advice!
Hive Fleet: Behemoth
Total Points: 2000 on the nose
Total Command Points: 5
Total Units to Deploy: 11
Spearhead Detachment HQ 1) Hive Tyrant with Wings: Adrenal Glands, Lash Whip and Monstrous Bone Sword, Monstrous Scything Talons, Toxin Sacs
- Relic: Reaper of Obliterax
- Warlord Trait: Monstrous Hunger (Behemoth Trait)
Do you know who's a monster? A Carnifex. Good ol' carnifex with 2x talons, tusks, adrenal glands, bone mace and spore cysts. Has -1 to be hit inherently, it has 6 attacks on the charge +1 from the tail, can inflict mortal wounds on charge and is cheap as heck. You can play 10 of them in a list (9 + old one eye) and still have about 900 pts more to put more monsters if you want. Also running your tyrants on the ground instead of wings saves you almost 50 pts per guy, which could be another tyrant. I mean a ground tyrant with a venom cannon and rending claws is what, 160 pts?
You could play 3 Hive Tyrants, Old One Eye, 9 carnifex and 3 Trygons or Toxicrenes for maximum meat.
I don't feel that semi-competitive is a good term for a list without a single obsec unit or screen, with the entire list being 10 models. That's thoroughly a fluff list imo.
If you are going to do pure MC, I cosign the above - max out on cheap Carnifexes at least.
Eihnlazer wrote: Genestealers usually. The thing is you cant do what you normally do with the stealers.
Most competitive Death guard players stick their PM's in a rhino at the start of the game until they think they can get out and grenade something to death.
Kill their screens and then have a squad of genestealers surround the rhino and take it out, killing all of them at once when they cant disembark. Most units have a hard time completely wrapping a vehicle properly to do so, but genestealers can.
Note that you have to place your stealers about .9" (or have 2 layers) away from the rhino and all the way around it to take out the squad of plagebearers when it goes down.
Plaguebearers cant go into a rhino. They are 30 Guys with t4 5++,5+++ and above 20 with -1. So often 1 der 2 30 man Units with -1 and 30 with -2.
Genestealer do against the -2 6 Kills in average. Not that great?
If you kill the Plaguebearer's support Heralds, their damage output drops dramatically. As for actually killing them...
Heck if I know how Nids can handle that. I play Bearers in my daemon list, and it's usually overwhelming numbers of shots that does them in-like Aggressors.
Edit: Although some math...
Each Stealer should have 4 attacks.
That's 2 hits per Stealer against the -1 unit (don't charge the -2), except you reroll ones, giving you one extra hit per 3 Stealers.
Every 2 hits is a wound.
Every 2.25 wounds is a dead Bearer.
Multiply it all out, and you get...
Slightly less than 8 attacks to kill a Bearer. Or, for every two Stealers in combat, you can kill one Bearer.
orchewer wrote: So in about a month, I'll be participating in my first ever GT! I'm pretty excited for this event since it's been a long-time dream to attend a large 40K tournament that's not run out of my FLGS. I'm not gunning for a Top-10 finish or anything, simply looking for some enjoyable and memorable games with an army list that's unique and fun to play.
With that being said, my list is below. It is, what I would consider to be, solidly "semi-competitive". My goal for this list was to essentially just run big, scary monsters which means that I sacrificed some more competitive options for the sake of fluff and theme. For example, no Hive Guard - they are infantry and therefore have no place in my army. Also, no Devilguants popping up with my Trygons because, they are infantry. Same with Genestealers getting slingshotted up the field by my Swarmlord. With the exception of a unit of spore mines, I am running pure, organic, locally-grown monsters.
However, I am still a new Tyranid player, so I wanted to pick the brains of the veterans out there for some more tactical advice. Things like, should my Flyrants be set up on the field or in deep strike? What psychic powers should I be taking and how distributed should they be? If I face a Knight army, how do I make it past Turn 2? etc. I am well beyond the "switching out units" part of army building and looking more at the "use what I have" part of army building.
Thanks for any and all advice!
Hive Fleet: Behemoth
Total Points: 2000 on the nose
Total Command Points: 5
Total Units to Deploy: 11
Spearhead Detachment HQ 1) Hive Tyrant with Wings: Adrenal Glands, Lash Whip and Monstrous Bone Sword, Monstrous Scything Talons, Toxin Sacs
- Relic: Reaper of Obliterax
- Warlord Trait: Monstrous Hunger (Behemoth Trait)
Your gonna get tabled very quickly.
Knights can pop 2 maybe even 3 MC a turn. You have no troops for objective secured. Kraken would be better than behemoth with flyrants.
This is a fluff list, but in an ITC your gonna hurt. YOu give up headhunter and big game hunter secondaries very easily as well.
orchewer wrote: So in about a month, I'll be participating in my first ever GT! I'm pretty excited for this event since it's been a long-time dream to attend a large 40K tournament that's not run out of my FLGS. I'm not gunning for a Top-10 finish or anything, simply looking for some enjoyable and memorable games with an army list that's unique and fun to play.
With that being said, my list is below. It is, what I would consider to be, solidly "semi-competitive". My goal for this list was to essentially just run big, scary monsters which means that I sacrificed some more competitive options for the sake of fluff and theme. For example, no Hive Guard - they are infantry and therefore have no place in my army. Also, no Devilguants popping up with my Trygons because, they are infantry. Same with Genestealers getting slingshotted up the field by my Swarmlord. With the exception of a unit of spore mines, I am running pure, organic, locally-grown monsters.
However, I am still a new Tyranid player, so I wanted to pick the brains of the veterans out there for some more tactical advice. Things like, should my Flyrants be set up on the field or in deep strike? What psychic powers should I be taking and how distributed should they be? If I face a Knight army, how do I make it past Turn 2? etc. I am well beyond the "switching out units" part of army building and looking more at the "use what I have" part of army building.
Thanks for any and all advice!
Hive Fleet: Behemoth
Total Points: 2000 on the nose
Total Command Points: 5
Total Units to Deploy: 11
Spearhead Detachment HQ 1) Hive Tyrant with Wings: Adrenal Glands, Lash Whip and Monstrous Bone Sword, Monstrous Scything Talons, Toxin Sacs
- Relic: Reaper of Obliterax
- Warlord Trait: Monstrous Hunger (Behemoth Trait)
Your gonna get tabled very quickly.
Knights can pop 2 maybe even 3 MC a turn. You have no troops for objective secured. Kraken would be better than behemoth with flyrants.
This is a fluff list, but in an ITC your gonna hurt. YOu give up headhunter and big game hunter secondaries very easily as well.
I think that everyone will enjoy playing you, but you're basically handicapping yourself ...
You've got to keep stuff alive T1 and then charge in all 3 trygons and 3 flyrants T2. LOS blocking, malanthrope seem to be your best chance, but you seem to be wholly reliant on the tyrannofexes to kill screens for you so you can charge the units you need to charge and not just chaff. I would put more shooting on the flyrants to help with this. I don't think you will have space to DS the trygons and flyrants where you want as that's a huge footprint that's easily countered, so flyrants will likely have to start on the table. Keep in range of a malanthrope T1 and then go for broke T2 ...
I'm trying to create a competitive 1600 point list and I'm conflicted about things I want to run vs things I should run. Like biovores. Can someone please help me create a decent list. Heres what I have to work with.
3 neurothropes/ zoanthropes
3 Venomthropes
Flyrant
Broodlord
24 genestealers
24 termagaunts
6 hive guard
1 mawloc/trygon/trygon prime
6 ripper swarms
2 carnifex
2 Tyranofex
The red terror
Magus
Primus
Abomarrant
And 5 abbarents
These can all be ran with any weapons available to them as my group does make you play with what is equipped on the model. Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated and am considering buying 3 biovores if it would be a better option then some of the stuff I have
Just got back from Dallas Open. There was only 1 Tyranid List out of 123 players. About 6 GSC list though. Nids are definitely in a poor place at the moment do to the prevalence of knights.
Dynas wrote: Just got back from Dallas Open. There was only 1 Tyranid List out of 123 players. About 6 GSC list though. Nids are definitely in a poor place at the moment do to the prevalence of knights.
I tried to be Nid number 2, but I wasn't able to convince my boss to give me a second weekend off in a row :( .
Knights and the superheavies people take to counter them really hurt us. I feel like that in order to handle the Knights/superheavies, we are effectively locked into taking two units of Shock Cannon Hive Guard and some Raveners to deliver them. I have had some success doing just that, running it as an entirely deep striking battalion, with two Neurothropes and the Hive Guard all coming in together and the rest being min Ripper units. Landing them and double tapping eats up 6 CP, but it hits fairly hard. The Neuro's can Smite/shriek or hit something with Horror. 18 d3 shots from the Hive Guard has this nice, tight distribution around 36 shots, with around an 80% chance of 30+ shots. 20 hits = 10 mortals + ~5 more wounds from the weapon itself.
Unfortunately, certain Knights can just ignore that, and unless you splash GSC for Vecting, there isn't much you can do about it.
Dynas wrote: Just got back from Dallas Open. There was only 1 Tyranid List out of 123 players. About 6 GSC list though. Nids are definitely in a poor place at the moment do to the prevalence of knights.
I tried to be Nid number 2, but I wasn't able to convince my boss to give me a second weekend off in a row :( .
Knights and the superheavies people take to counter them really hurt us. I feel like that in order to handle the Knights/superheavies, we are effectively locked into taking two units of Shock Cannon Hive Guard and some Raveners to deliver them. I have had some success doing just that, running it as an entirely deep striking battalion, with two Neurothropes and the Hive Guard all coming in together and the rest being min Ripper units. Landing them and double tapping eats up 6 CP, but it hits fairly hard. The Neuro's can Smite/shriek or hit something with Horror. 18 d3 shots from the Hive Guard has this nice, tight distribution around 36 shots, with around an 80% chance of 30+ shots. 20 hits = 10 mortals + ~5 more wounds from the weapon itself.
Unfortunately, certain Knights can just ignore that, and unless you splash GSC for Vecting, there isn't much you can do about it.
Yeah but you are spending what, 800 points to do that. Plus the cp. I was thinking of going the other way, and doing swarm style. Lorks and GSC, who cares if he is shooting cawls wrath at a mob of gants or GS. Thinking 60 GS with Broodlords and swarmy. In melee he doesnt get the invul save. 20 of them are doing 11.11 wounds. Use fight twice and add the broodlord and it should be enough. ALso, you can use other units around him to make a second screen that blocks out the knight. SO even though he can fall back, if you place a circle of GS around 6" away it should shut him out from being able to physically place the knight.
Dynas wrote: Just got back from Dallas Open. There was only 1 Tyranid List out of 123 players. About 6 GSC list though. Nids are definitely in a poor place at the moment do to the prevalence of knights.
I tried to be Nid number 2, but I wasn't able to convince my boss to give me a second weekend off in a row :( .
Knights and the superheavies people take to counter them really hurt us. I feel like that in order to handle the Knights/superheavies, we are effectively locked into taking two units of Shock Cannon Hive Guard and some Raveners to deliver them. I have had some success doing just that, running it as an entirely deep striking battalion, with two Neurothropes and the Hive Guard all coming in together and the rest being min Ripper units. Landing them and double tapping eats up 6 CP, but it hits fairly hard. The Neuro's can Smite/shriek or hit something with Horror. 18 d3 shots from the Hive Guard has this nice, tight distribution around 36 shots, with around an 80% chance of 30+ shots. 20 hits = 10 mortals + ~5 more wounds from the weapon itself.
Unfortunately, certain Knights can just ignore that, and unless you splash GSC for Vecting, there isn't much you can do about it.
Yeah but you are spending what, 800 points to do that. Plus the cp. I was thinking of going the other way, and doing swarm style. Lorks and GSC, who cares if he is shooting cawls wrath at a mob of gants or GS. Thinking 60 GS with Broodlords and swarmy. In melee he doesnt get the invul save. 20 of them are doing 11.11 wounds. Use fight twice and add the broodlord and it should be enough. ALso, you can use other units around him to make a second screen that blocks out the knight. SO even though he can fall back, if you place a circle of GS around 6" away it should shut him out from being able to physically place the knight.
Yeah, it isn't cheap. I've tried the swarm builds, and I find that I just can't keep enough of them alive to kill the knight. My experience has been that if I put 60 'stealers + Malenthrope + Broodlord + Swarmlord on the table, I get generally get to charge a screen with 30 'stealers and a Broodlord. 'Gaunts can help clear the screens, but I find that if I'm charging turn 1, I'm only charging chaff, and decent armies have enough shooting that I loose enough mass that I can't bring down the superheavies with the 'stealers. I've had some success trying to ignore the Knight and kill everything else.
I'm not saying your wrong. I'm mostly agreeing that we are in a rough place due to lack of good ways to handle superheavies.
Dynas wrote: Just got back from Dallas Open. There was only 1 Tyranid List out of 123 players. About 6 GSC list though. Nids are definitely in a poor place at the moment do to the prevalence of knights.
I tried to be Nid number 2, but I wasn't able to convince my boss to give me a second weekend off in a row :( .
Knights and the superheavies people take to counter them really hurt us. I feel like that in order to handle the Knights/superheavies, we are effectively locked into taking two units of Shock Cannon Hive Guard and some Raveners to deliver them. I have had some success doing just that, running it as an entirely deep striking battalion, with two Neurothropes and the Hive Guard all coming in together and the rest being min Ripper units. Landing them and double tapping eats up 6 CP, but it hits fairly hard. The Neuro's can Smite/shriek or hit something with Horror. 18 d3 shots from the Hive Guard has this nice, tight distribution around 36 shots, with around an 80% chance of 30+ shots. 20 hits = 10 mortals + ~5 more wounds from the weapon itself.
Unfortunately, certain Knights can just ignore that, and unless you splash GSC for Vecting, there isn't much you can do about it.
Yeah but you are spending what, 800 points to do that. Plus the cp. I was thinking of going the other way, and doing swarm style. Lorks and GSC, who cares if he is shooting cawls wrath at a mob of gants or GS. Thinking 60 GS with Broodlords and swarmy. In melee he doesnt get the invul save. 20 of them are doing 11.11 wounds. Use fight twice and add the broodlord and it should be enough. ALso, you can use other units around him to make a second screen that blocks out the knight. SO even though he can fall back, if you place a circle of GS around 6" away it should shut him out from being able to physically place the knight.
Yeah, it isn't cheap. I've tried the swarm builds, and I find that I just can't keep enough of them alive to kill the knight. My experience has been that if I put 60 'stealers + Malenthrope + Broodlord + Swarmlord on the table, I get generally get to charge a screen with 30 'stealers and a Broodlord. 'Gaunts can help clear the screens, but I find that if I'm charging turn 1, I'm only charging chaff, and decent armies have enough shooting that I loose enough mass that I can't bring down the superheavies with the 'stealers. I've had some success trying to ignore the Knight and kill everything else.
I'm not saying your wrong. I'm mostly agreeing that we are in a rough place due to lack of good ways to handle superheavies.
Yeah. I too have had this issue in the past, a few things ive done.
30 Devil gants shooting 90 shots or 180 with single minded annihilation to clear screens if needed.
If the GS kill the chaff screen use overrun strat to move and advance GS again and then play the Fight Again strat.
Try using Hormies to go in first since they have the 6" pile in and consolidate.
Another thing I have considered. Is deploying 3 mawlocs in the back perhaps out of LoS if able and on T1 burrow. On T2 come up and surround the knight doing the mortal wounds. Surround the knight at 1.1" away. Then bring up a DS of Ravenors and hope for a 9" charge to lock the knight in combat. You can then surround the knight in such a way that it cant fall back and thus lose its shooting phase. You could also use a Trygon or Trygon prime as a 4th as well and DS 9" and give AG for 8" charge to lock up the knight.
Technically it can fall back from infantry (ie the ravenors) and over them, but if you have the MAwlocs surrounding him, he can't move past them so they are boxing him in.
I haven't tried this latter trick, i really wish the mawloc could charge the turn it came up.
If you have 3 Mawlocs and your opponent leaves enough space around his Knight to block every direction with them as well as fit enough Raveners in to survive the first round of combat, the mistake was on him even if you make the charge. That's not a reliable investment or even a worthy one if it did manage to work imo, I'd still rather be the Knight player in that scenario
Well the mawlocs can get within an 1.1" so that is quite possible. i usually find knights are screened way out front and people leave them 7" away to avoid getting consolidated into.
It really comes down to the ravenors making the charge. Again this is theory, every game is different.
Dynas wrote: Well the mawlocs can get within an 1.1" so that is quite possible. i usually find knights are screened way out front and people leave them 7" away to avoid getting consolidated into.
It really comes down to the ravenors making the charge. Again this is theory, every game is different.
5.1x6.1" tho... the base is about 4-5" big who cares if you kill 1-2 guardsmen for 100pts
Dynas wrote: Well the mawlocs can get within an 1.1" so that is quite possible. i usually find knights are screened way out front and people leave them 7" away to avoid getting consolidated into.
It really comes down to the ravenors making the charge. Again this is theory, every game is different.
5.1x6.1" tho... the base is about 4-5" big who cares if you kill 1-2 guardsmen for 100pts
What point are you making here? Im not trying to be rude, im genuinely not sure? lol
My point is that since his screen is 7" away you should be able to slot in the Mawlocs behind his screen and hit his knight.
Dynas wrote: Well the mawlocs can get within an 1.1" so that is quite possible. i usually find knights are screened way out front and people leave them 7" away to avoid getting consolidated into.
It really comes down to the ravenors making the charge. Again this is theory, every game is different.
5.1x6.1" tho... the base is about 4-5" big who cares if you kill 1-2 guardsmen for 100pts
What point are you making here? Im not trying to be rude, im genuinely not sure? lol
My point is that since his screen is 7" away you should be able to slot in the Mawlocs behind his screen and hit his knight.
My point was just that they should see you have Mawlocs and body block you with infantry to stop them coming in and doing that.
True. This is why we use devilgants to clear the screen hopefully.
I agree with you on the devilgants, but I'm not sold on the tactic even after that. After taking 3 Mawlocs, a big unit of gaunts, a unit to deliver them (min Raveners w/deathspitters, I assume), and something to charge with (Raveners or Trygon) you don't have a lot of points to build an army with. You have put at least 800 points into this (790 with 30x gants, 2x min Raveners with no upgrades), and you are relying on a 9 inch charge. If you make the charge, your not going to actually hurt the Knight beyond the handful of mortals you get from the Mawlocs. Assuming the Knight can't kill a Mawloc in one turn of CC, you lock him up the turn you charge and one more turn.
Your best case here is to kill the screen turn 2, lock the Knight turn 3 and 4, and then what? Once he gets to shoot again he'll kill both your remaining Mawlocs, and you still have the rest of his army to deal with.
If you do it with a Trygon, you get a 8" charge instead, and might bracket him on the turn you charge, but you still don't get the kill. You also rely on the board being such that you can get 4 ovals into the correct position to lock him + charge, which isn't going to be guarenteed.
Just as a thought, but has anyone taken a second look at the Harpy post Chapter Approved? They dropped considerably from their old price (over 200 points to ~150 points) and their toolkit would work rather well with things that people are taking anyway.
I play 2 Harpies time to time, you really need a Malanthrop/Venomthropes, without a natural -1 or invul they are way to easy to be killed off. B.c of this you need to build a list that utilizes that to the fullest. They IMO are not something to just throw into a list.
Need to organize my thoughts for a bit, but my first impression is:
No more double shooting reapers.
No more doomed/guided dissie cannons.
No more castellans around (or at least much less).
.
.
.
Can we finally make use of our reduced cost beasts?
Need to organize my thoughts for a bit, but my first impression is:
No more double shooting reapers.
No more doomed/guided dissie cannons.
No more castellans around (or at least much less).
.
.
.
Can we finally make use of our reduced cost beasts?
First though, no, because the things that are going to surge into the gap created by this (IG Armored Company, Tau) still eat them for lunch.
Second thought, we can take most of those builds.
So....maybe? Depending on how it all shakes out? The MC builds have been sitting at bottom of second tier, might be enough to save them.
New to tyranids. Currently play heavy mech/armoured IG.
What is the most competitive way of drowning my opponent in nid bodies? 200+ models minimum.
I was thinking something like a hormagaunt heavy hydra battalion mixed with a genestealer kraken battalion. Top off with a mix of Malanthrope/Neurothrope/Venomthropes.
So competative horde is tricky, because the most common competitive environment (ITC) incentivizes killing units. The big horde builds struggle to kill enough units to do well in ITC, because you are giving up killyness for durability. You can also expect to have time trouble, particularly in games played on chess clocks.
That said. 3 Malenthropes and a Neurothrope + naked Hormagants in Leviathan gives you 298 Hormies in two battalions, at -1 to hit and 6++.
If you want to be more killy, 90 Genestealers + Broodlord + Malenthrope leaves you room for the other two Malenthropes and 150 Hormagants. The 'stealers are more dangerous as a Kraken battalion, but synergize better as Leviathan.
I would personally run the Kraken + Leviathan version.
Asymmetric wrote: New to tyranids. Currently play heavy mech/armoured IG.
What is the most competitive way of drowning my opponent in nid bodies? 200+ models minimum.
I was thinking something like a hormagaunt heavy hydra battalion mixed with a genestealer kraken battalion. Top off with a mix of Malanthrope/Neurothrope/Venomthropes.
Generally when I play Hydra I try to build everything in 120 point blocks to leverage their enhanced version of Endless Swarm and generally leave enough points aside for 1-2 respawns. Going for pure swarm means this isn't as problematic as it is with a mixed army. The foe is going to be hard pressed to table you before you can access your reinforcement points. Zoanthropes are a good option for non-character synapse nodes since they offer wide coverage and are most unappealing targets due to their 3++ and relatively low offensive capabilities. Venomthropes are actually fairly good combat units with Hydra since they already reroll all failed wound rolls and like being taken in larger units anyway for the extended spore cloud. They also offer a bit of CP regeneration potential as well if you can pick off a weak support character with them.
I'd generally not advise mixing Hive Fleets with Hydra. They already want to leave some points aside to use their stratagem (the repositioning aspect is the main benefit here) and a good player will focus on the supporting fleet to deny the ability to re-deploy destroyed units. Hydra also really wants large units to increase the likelihood of triggering their adaptation ability, so points invested in another fleet and its support infrastructure are points not going into using Hydra's adaptation to its fullest extent.
Asymmetric wrote: New to tyranids. Currently play heavy mech/armoured IG.
What is the most competitive way of drowning my opponent in nid bodies? 200+ models minimum.
I was thinking something like a hormagaunt heavy hydra battalion mixed with a genestealer kraken battalion. Top off with a mix of Malanthrope/Neurothrope/Venomthropes.
As already mentioned, we need to know the ruleset used in your area. Do you play canon 40K, ITC or ETC in your area?
Making an horde list is completely different depending on the ruleset used.
Asymmetric wrote: New to tyranids. Currently play heavy mech/armoured IG.
What is the most competitive way of drowning my opponent in nid bodies? 200+ models minimum.
I was thinking something like a hormagaunt heavy hydra battalion mixed with a genestealer kraken battalion. Top off with a mix of Malanthrope/Neurothrope/Venomthropes.
As already mentioned, we need to know the ruleset used in your area. Do you play canon 40K, ITC or ETC in your area?
Making an horde list is completely different depending on the ruleset used.
UK - Which tends towards straight vanilla 40k due to the firm grip GW has here.
They are very cheap now, 25pt for a HF flamer Warrior with a power weapon, the thing tho, its a 10" HF, so you can DS and still shoot. If Lictor strat, or Jormungandr was a bit better you would for sure see them more.
You can play them, and most likely could even do well (for nids) with a couple in your list, especially vs GSC and Orks. They are just to easy to be killed IMO.
Asymmetric wrote: New to tyranids. Currently play heavy mech/armoured IG.
What is the most competitive way of drowning my opponent in nid bodies? 200+ models minimum.
I was thinking something like a hormagaunt heavy hydra battalion mixed with a genestealer kraken battalion. Top off with a mix of Malanthrope/Neurothrope/Venomthropes.
As already mentioned, we need to know the ruleset used in your area. Do you play canon 40K, ITC or ETC in your area?
Making an horde list is completely different depending on the ruleset used.
UK - Which tends towards straight vanilla 40k due to the firm grip GW has here.
I honestly like it that way (All tournaments are ITC around me, i dont like ITC) For a horde list that could be Eternal or Maelstrom,you'll still want Genestealers (Tho with that said, I have seen 250 body lists work without Genestealers, but this was before the Neurothrope and Malanthrope points chance) , they are to good not to use, Ayou'll want some speed and shooting, a mix of Hgants and Tgants will be good, with Hgants in front and Tgants sitting back with some shooting it would work.
You'll want Neurothropes and 1 Malanthrope, 2 Battalions is enough with 4 HQ's.
Horde lists for nids has 2 problems, anti-tank, anti-horde, you can get away with anti-tank with numbers (stop knights, walkers, etc.. from moving out of their zone, you stop their movements you win the game) but anti-horde is a proble, thats why i would still take Genestealers, they'll eat up a couple horde units and get you snow balling.
Horde nids works b.c of numbers, speed, and no moral checks, you need to learn all the ways you can add movements to your units, once you know how to lock down the table and stop DSing and movement it becomes easy to win, but you'll never feel strong, no big damaging units other than genestealers.
Finally, an odd option but does work, DSing unit, Rippers or Goyles, Rippers are better IMO, but they dont have the footprint as Goyles, and you need the footprint, having DSing units means even more speed, turn 2 you can place them right where you need them, if you are taking RIppers 1x9 is a large foot print, goyles i would only take 1x20.
Thats 242 models with 130pts left over, so you have room to put something else in, if you feel you need some Anti-tank, take some models out and put in Hiveguard or a Broodlord or 2, you can already fit 3 Hiveguard, remove another 150pts and you can have 6 Hive guard.
180 termagaunts half of which actually can hurt stuff. Everyone can be -1 to hit with a 6+++. you have 5 psychers with redundant powers so no easy choice for assasins to go after and 2 of those psychers move fast and can kill most things in melee. Make the most out of your malanthropes. If you can somehow get their prey adaption off the whole army gets alot more scary.
Note, as the meiotic spores arent kraken, they dont get to double their advance or get reliable advance rolls, but since they got the buff of starting only 9" away instead of 12" and you can still metabolic overdrive to move twice they should still do what they are supposed to do. They will force your opponent to screen his high damage units or they will wreck them. Go after things that can take out your characters, or kill something that can put out 20+ shots with them (to keep your hordes alive). Remember they do 15.5 mortal wounds on average but that can swing from 0-48 mortal wounds if the dice so choose.
So I am building up my first Tyranids army. Basing around the classic Kraken genestealer lists as I want the army to be a learning tool for competitive gaming.
I've currently got a magnetised Swarmlord/Flyrant, 40 genestealers, Brood lord, 9 ripper bases, 30 Terms and 3 Hive Guard. So sitting around 1250 points.
Are these good next steps?
- 3 more hive gaurd
- another Flyrant (or two?)
- and then not sure after that? Neurothropes? Venomthropes? Malanthrope? More stealers? Biovores?
Also how do you keep synapse to your hive gaurd (really just stopping instinctive behaviour)? Espically as I've seen lists with no 'baby-sitting' Neuro's or Tyranid Primes. I haven't played them yet so not sure if it's even an issue?
I am slowly building a Tyranid army (only of the models I like, which is mostly CC). Now I have some Raveners and came across the Red Terror. Is it worthwhile to field a couple of units of Raveners accompanied by the Red Terror? How many Raveners is best and should I use any other units to accompany them?
MaxB wrote:So I am building up my first Tyranids army. Basing around the classic Kraken genestealer lists as I want the army to be a learning tool for competitive gaming.
I've currently got a magnetised Swarmlord/Flyrant, 40 genestealers, Brood lord, 9 ripper bases, 30 Terms and 3 Hive Guard. So sitting around 1250 points.
Are these good next steps?
- 3 more hive gaurd
- another Flyrant (or two?)
- and then not sure after that? Neurothropes? Venomthropes? Malanthrope? More stealers? Biovores?
Also how do you keep synapse to your hive gaurd (really just stopping instinctive behaviour)? Espically as I've seen lists with no 'baby-sitting' Neuro's or Tyranid Primes. I haven't played them yet so not sure if it's even an issue?
Those next steps should be fine. You probably will want to prioritize shrouding after that. I personally prefer Venomthropes for front-line coverage since they offer a bigger bubble and bring a bit of combat capability with them. Malanthropes are better for backfield shrouding, since they will generally be babysitting gunbeasts which need synapse coverage and at the rear it is harder for the opponent to clear away units in order to expose them for shooting.
Generally I keep a brood of Warriors around my Hiveguard for synapse and melee assistance if someone tries to tie them up. In your case you could probably just take Dominion on one of your Hive Tyrants and use that to switch off instinctive behavior once the synaptic leash has been exceeded.
Singleton Mosby wrote:I am slowly building a Tyranid army (only of the models I like, which is mostly CC). Now I have some Raveners and came across the Red Terror. Is it worthwhile to field a couple of units of Raveners accompanied by the Red Terror? How many Raveners is best and should I use any other units to accompany them?
Raveners are generally used with Jormungandr to offer drop points for units set-up in the tunnel network. Any of the other T4 infantry make good tunnel mates, though I've generally had best success with a small Venomthrope Brood and either 'stealers or a gunbeast brood of some sort (Shockguard, Warriors, Termagantsd, Pyrovore). By themselves I've generally found Raveners to do best against light infantry due to the high volume of attacks they bring (both in melee and shooting if given Spinefists). You basically want them to bully shooting units and avoid combat with anything that can hit back effectively, using their speed to set up favorable engagements and keep them out of sight as much as possible.
I generally go with 2 units of 6 when I bring them. It gives them a fairly large footprint for dropping other units and gives them enough bodies that they can threaten larger squads of infantry more effectively.
Looking at maybe starting a Tyranids army in the near future, since they encompass a lot of what I like from a 40k army (took 3 armies for me to realize that).
I'm starting with a 500 point build for financial purposes. I know I want a Broodlord and 16 Genestealers to start, which brings me to 307 points. What would round out a solid 500 point force? I was thinking a Carnifex with 2 Deathspitters and a Heavy Venom Cannon for longish range support and a squad of 12 Termagants with an even split of Devourers and Fleshborers for a bit of closer range shooting.
My above plan would put me at just under 500 points. Is that a good foundation for a larger army, or should I consider something else as I'm starting out?
ronjamin1022 wrote: Looking at maybe starting a Tyranids army in the near future, since they encompass a lot of what I like from a 40k army (took 3 armies for me to realize that).
I'm starting with a 500 point build for financial purposes. I know I want a Broodlord and 16 Genestealers to start, which brings me to 307 points. What would round out a solid 500 point force? I was thinking a Carnifex with 2 Deathspitters and a Heavy Venom Cannon for longish range support and a squad of 12 Termagants with an even split of Devourers and Fleshborers for a bit of closer range shooting.
My above plan would put me at just under 500 points. Is that a good foundation for a larger army, or should I consider something else as I'm starting out?
I would suggest if you want some ranged I'd go with a nerothrope and a brood of 3 Hive guard(soon to be 6 when you want to expand above 500). It's expensive $ wise but gives you an additional HQ/Synapse as well as the best shooting unit we have.
ronjamin1022 wrote: Looking at maybe starting a Tyranids army in the near future, since they encompass a lot of what I like from a 40k army (took 3 armies for me to realize that).
I'm starting with a 500 point build for financial purposes. I know I want a Broodlord and 16 Genestealers to start, which brings me to 307 points. What would round out a solid 500 point force? I was thinking a Carnifex with 2 Deathspitters and a Heavy Venom Cannon for longish range support and a squad of 12 Termagants with an even split of Devourers and Fleshborers for a bit of closer range shooting.
My above plan would put me at just under 500 points. Is that a good foundation for a larger army, or should I consider something else as I'm starting out?
I would suggest if you want some ranged I'd go with a nerothrope and a brood of 3 Hive guard(soon to be 6 when you want to expand above 500). It's expensive $ wise but gives you an additional HQ/Synapse as well as the best shooting unit we have.
A Neurothrope or two and 6 Hive Guard are definitely in my long term plans, but how would I squeeze a Neurothrope and 3 Hive Guard into 500 points? My newer plan was to bring a Broodlord, 16 Genestealers, and 24 Devourer Termagants. I could pretty much wipe any troops off the board, but I'd have to lock the heavy stuff in melee, as I know most people will bring at least one Dreadnought-type model in small games (or Guard with 2 Leman Russ).
Are you handy with magnets? If so a Tervigon/ Tyrannofex could be a good project, In a small game a Tervigon is a good HQ that can refresh units of Termigants. You could also go "counter-meta" by looking at Ole one eye A Carnifex could be your version of a Dreadnot
A couple of things from the latest errata (29th May 2019)...
First Paroxysm no longer stops people using the interrupt stratagem to fight.
Spoiler:
Q: If a unit is affected by a rule that forces it to fight after all
other units able to fight have done so, such as the effects of the
Paroxysm psychic power, the Vexator Mask or the Armour of
Russ, can it still be affected by the Counter-Offensive Stratagem?
A: Yes, the Counter Offensive Stratagem allows a unit to
fight outside of the normal fight order (i.e. the Stratagem
does not give a unit the ability to fight first in the Fight
phase, it simply instructs you to pick a unit and fight with
it next).
And no more Oppurtunistic Advance for a unit affected by Swarmlord's Hive Commander. Permission to do this has been removed from Tyranids errata so now this from the Rule Book errata...
Spoiler:
Q: When a rule allows a model or unit to take an action (move,
shoot, charge, fight or attempt to manifest a psychic power)
outside of the normal turn sequence, and that rule explicitly
mentions to make that action as if it were a different phase of the
turn structure to the current one, e.g. ‘That unit can shoot as if it
were the Shooting phase’, do rules that are normally used during
that phase (in the example this would be the Shooting phase) take
effect? Is the same true of Overwatch attacks?
A: With the exception of Stratagems, all rules (e.g.
abilities, Warlord Traits, psychic powers etc.) that would
apply in a specific phase apply to actions that are taking
place ‘as if it were that phase’. However, if a Stratagem
specifies that it must be used in a specific phase, then
it can only be used in that phase (e.g. you cannot use a
Stratagem that says ‘Use this Stratagem in the Shooting
phase’ to affect a unit that is Shooting ‘as if it were
the Shooting phase’). For the purposes of this FAQ,
Overwatch attacks are not considered to be attacks made
as if it were your Shooting phase.
So this just takes 1-6" off the total threat range from stealers/swarmlord I believe?
Yeah, it drops you from being able to move up to 40" then charge, to being able to move up to 34" and then charge. I really don't think that's a big deal. I've never had a game where I needed that extra 6".
I'm much more bothered by the paroxysm nerf. That makes fighting other close combat armies much harder. Being able to shut down a units ability to use counter offensive was invaluable vs orks in particular.
The other nerf is that using a 'fight twice' stratagem to pile into a new enemy unit now allows that unit to fight back. That was quite a handy trick for keeping your genestealers safe, now made a bit more risky.
Ah, the fight twice thing might have changed in the April FAQ, rather than the update that just came out. My bad.
Anyway, it was fairly commonly played that as the stratagem is used at the end of the fight phase, no additional units could become available to fight after using it. That's no longer the case.
I'm painting up a new Tyranid List. I know they're supposed to be in a rough spot, but it's now or never. Want to aim for a decent hard list. I'm roughly looking at:
Ist this a good list to get used to their playstyle and be reasonable beefy? I probably would upgrade the list with Hive tyrants and Hive guard or a genesteaer cults dettachement.
Also....does the swarmlord allow the genestealers to advance in the shooting phase even if they're not within range of anyone to shoot?
Well your list isn't bad at 1000 points because most armies wont have the long range firepower at that level to kill all your genestealers turn 1.
However, unless your turn one is REALLY effective, your be left with just your HQ's after turn 2 and you'll be playing Kill team with your remaining models.
I just painted my Broodlord so i would like to include him. However I could interchange the swarmlord into a hive tyrant with wings and twin linked devours, to gain at least some firepower and add the genestealers up to 2 x 20.
If you setup Genestealers in infestation nodes, are they in reserves? For instance, can they arrive on turn 1? Do they count against you for the number of units you can deploy into reserves?
Amishprn86 wrote: They are in reserves yes. They must come in turn 2 and counts as your reinforcements.
So even in friendly casual games, there isn't really a way to make use of this ability, right? At least not without a house rule.
For match play, not narrative or open, your friendly games can just be open play and then you dont need to follow many of the rules, like Rule of three, no DSing turn one. more than 3 detachments, etc...
I just posted this in General "Units I love but don't see played" and thought it might be something that could be reprised in this fourm:
Tyranid Warriors
At first glance for their points they seem ok almost good but they are such generalists they don't shine at anything. They are only really good if you don't have the other things that are better and that's sad.
Warriors are a troop that provides synapse and have fairly baseline shooting and slightly above average melee for min 20ppm. With (edited)3 wounds and a 4+ sv you would think they were fairly resilent but they fall into an unfortunate slot of being weak to all guns. High ROF low str guns and high Str high damage guns it dosent mattrer everything works well/is efficent against them. With their 4+ sv they fail more than pass. As for synapse most of our HQ's have it and are protected as characters and are more efficent.
for that matter The Warrior Prime HQ (which is our cheapest HQ choice) has synapse which is rudendent as he wants to be near warriors who already have it.
As for better units as troops:
Genestealers are wayy faster and much more killy in melee for less.
Rippers are super cheap troops and can DS and are also very eazy to hide from LOS
Termigaunts with Divs are much more efficent at shooting point for point and again are also troops.
Even Hormagaunts are faster and can swarm with 6" pile in and trap enemies.
All of which need synapse but our HQ's cover that more efficently.
Nerothropes are characters and psykers as well as synapse and have a 3++ so as long as there is chaff you will almost never loose synapse.
Malanthropes give out our handy -1 to hit shroud as well as synapse and are also characters.
For elite shooting/Firepower
For similar pts a unit of 6 hive guard vs 9 Warriors not only out shoots/damages nearly any target but can do it from behind LOS blocking protecting it from most retaliation.
Our big gun bugs again outshoot most targets for similar price points.
This all aside there are some builds that can work for Warriors but they won't likely win anything competitive.
I see only 2 solutions and the first (most likely) is a pts cost decrease. This would make them more efficent but is a very slippery slope as even a 2point reduction could make them too good in certin situations and suddenly they are in the same bracket as many space marines with dbl the wounds and the marine players would cry.
The second solution is to change them functionally some way to make them "super" in a limited way.
I think that the old index shrikes should be given a nod by adding a wing option to all "warrior" types (inc Prime) for 5ppm giving them a 8" move and the fly KW. Also I'd like to remove synapse from them and insted give them the Psychic resonator ability from the Sporocyst. This would allow you to reduce their base pts by 2-3 without them being too OP.
Tyran wrote: Warriors are good if you spam them in casual games. As they are decent at everything, you have an army that can pretty much do everything.
But this is exactly what I mean. They are "good" for casual but they just are a liability in any competitive list I build. They need someting more to be able to compete.
Tyran wrote: Warriors are good if you spam them in casual games. As they are decent at everything, you have an army that can pretty much do everything.
But this is exactly what I mean. They are "good" for casual but they just are a liability in any competitive list I build. They need someting more to be able to compete.
Well do you only play competitive games? And with competitive I mean tournament level with all the nonsense that involves?
By that standard 99% of all units in the game are subpar.
I am wanting to get back into Tyranids after many years. I have both Primaris Marines and Chaos Marines armirs now, but I wanna get back to my roots. I played 'nids way back in '02, and have never really lost my love for them. I have 1 Hive Tyrant I built and painted, and now I want to buy the spearhead box and 2 start collecting boxes. I know this list will not be optimal, but it seems fun. Are MCs any good in this edition? Will this be even a slightly usable list?
1500 points
Hive Fleet Behemoth Battalion - 8CP
HQ:
Broodlord - Power: Catalyst
Broodlord - Power: The Horror
Well, it looks like a fun list. If you are running Behemoth take a look at good ole Hormagaunts. You can smash them into a unit with a strat and do some work, then have them bleed acid all over the foe later. If you are running "lots o'stealers"(tm) Kraken usually does better with the speed boost. But as long as your local meta allows build stuff you enjoy running. You can always add some Stealer cults as brood brothers if you need something "extra". Good luck, and welcome to the Hive Mind!
Hey all looking at some input for my horde/melee list. Im not looking to spam specific units. Do you think itll hold up in the game? Also im at a loss for traits and hive fleet what do you think?
Timeshadow wrote: I just posted this in General "Units I love but don't see played" and thought it might be something that could be reprised in this fourm:
Tyranid Warriors
At first glance for their points they seem ok almost good but they are such generalists they don't shine at anything. They are only really good if you don't have the other things that are better and that's sad.
Warriors are a troop that provides synapse and have fairly baseline shooting and slightly above average melee for min 20ppm. With (edited)3 wounds and a 4+ sv you would think they were fairly resilent but they fall into an unfortunate slot of being weak to all guns. High ROF low str guns and high Str high damage guns it dosent mattrer everything works well/is efficent against them. With their 4+ sv they fail more than pass. As for synapse most of our HQ's have it and are protected as characters and are more efficent. for that matter The Warrior Prime HQ (which is our cheapest HQ choice) has synapse which is rudendent as he wants to be near warriors who already have it.
As for better units as troops:
Genestealers are wayy faster and much more killy in melee for less.
Rippers are super cheap troops and can DS and are also very eazy to hide from LOS
Termigaunts with Divs are much more efficent at shooting point for point and again are also troops.
Even Hormagaunts are faster and can swarm with 6" pile in and trap enemies.
All of which need synapse but our HQ's cover that more efficently.
Nerothropes are characters and psykers as well as synapse and have a 3++ so as long as there is chaff you will almost never loose synapse.
Malanthropes give out our handy -1 to hit shroud as well as synapse and are also characters.
For elite shooting/Firepower
For similar pts a unit of 6 hive guard vs 9 Warriors not only out shoots/damages nearly any target but can do it from behind LOS blocking protecting it from most retaliation.
Our big gun bugs again outshoot most targets for similar price points.
This all aside there are some builds that can work for Warriors but they won't likely win anything competitive.
I see only 2 solutions and the first (most likely) is a pts cost decrease. This would make them more efficent but is a very slippery slope as even a 2point reduction could make them too good in certin situations and suddenly they are in the same bracket as many space marines with dbl the wounds and the marine players would cry.
The second solution is to change them functionally some way to make them "super" in a limited way.
I think that the old index shrikes should be given a nod by adding a wing option to all "warrior" types (inc Prime) for 5ppm giving them a 8" move and the fly KW. Also I'd like to remove synapse from them and insted give them the Psychic resonator ability from the Sporocyst. This would allow you to reduce their base pts by 2-3 without them being too OP.
Not saying that warriors and the top competitive tyranid choice, but you can't say "this unit is not good because everything it does someone does it better". That is true for almost every unit in the game, you are either an ultraspecialized elite unit that does one and only one thing, or you can repeat that analysis for it with the same results.
Actually, i'm quite sure that i could do it even for ultra dedicated units like hive guards. Warriors are not a problem because they do not excel at something. Knights don't do it either, there are units that shoot or melee better for those points. They are good because they are a nice package of shooting assault mobility and durability, but for the points they are outclassed in each of those aspects. Warriors are not competitive because they don't synergize a lot with the other typical elements of the swarm. They are not swarmy, they are not ultra aggressive, they do not provide backline fire support, they are not psyonic. To work well, they have to be in a list based around warriors, which while fun and semi competitive, it is not our most efficient list. As you correctly said, they are already "good" for the cost, so you can't really decrease the cost or you risk a fine mess.
pinecone77 wrote: Well, it looks like a fun list. If you are running Behemoth take a look at good ole Hormagaunts. You can smash them into a unit with a strat and do some work, then have them bleed acid all over the foe later. If you are running "lots o'stealers"(tm) Kraken usually does better with the speed boost. But as long as your local meta allows build stuff you enjoy running. You can always add some Stealer cults as brood brothers if you need something "extra". Good luck, and welcome to the Hive Mind!
I might just move the two adrenal glands Trygons into the Spearhead and make the all 'stealer for Kraken, while keeping the big bugs Behemoth.
Timeshadow wrote: I just posted this in General "Units I love but don't see played" and thought it might be something that could be reprised in this fourm:
Tyranid Warriors
At first glance for their points they seem ok almost good but they are such generalists they don't shine at anything. They are only really good if you don't have the other things that are better and that's sad.
Warriors are a troop that provides synapse and have fairly baseline shooting and slightly above average melee for min 20ppm. With (edited)3 wounds and a 4+ sv you would think they were fairly resilent but they fall into an unfortunate slot of being weak to all guns. High ROF low str guns and high Str high damage guns it dosent mattrer everything works well/is efficent against them. With their 4+ sv they fail more than pass. As for synapse most of our HQ's have it and are protected as characters and are more efficent.
for that matter The Warrior Prime HQ (which is our cheapest HQ choice) has synapse which is rudendent as he wants to be near warriors who already have it.
As for better units as troops:
Genestealers are wayy faster and much more killy in melee for less.
Rippers are super cheap troops and can DS and are also very eazy to hide from LOS
Termigaunts with Divs are much more efficent at shooting point for point and again are also troops.
Even Hormagaunts are faster and can swarm with 6" pile in and trap enemies.
All of which need synapse but our HQ's cover that more efficently.
Nerothropes are characters and psykers as well as synapse and have a 3++ so as long as there is chaff you will almost never loose synapse.
Malanthropes give out our handy -1 to hit shroud as well as synapse and are also characters.
For elite shooting/Firepower
For similar pts a unit of 6 hive guard vs 9 Warriors not only out shoots/damages nearly any target but can do it from behind LOS blocking protecting it from most retaliation.
Our big gun bugs again outshoot most targets for similar price points.
This all aside there are some builds that can work for Warriors but they won't likely win anything competitive.
I see only 2 solutions and the first (most likely) is a pts cost decrease. This would make them more efficent but is a very slippery slope as even a 2point reduction could make them too good in certin situations and suddenly they are in the same bracket as many space marines with dbl the wounds and the marine players would cry.
The second solution is to change them functionally some way to make them "super" in a limited way.
I think that the old index shrikes should be given a nod by adding a wing option to all "warrior" types (inc Prime) for 5ppm giving them a 8" move and the fly KW. Also I'd like to remove synapse from them and insted give them the Psychic resonator ability from the Sporocyst. This would allow you to reduce their base pts by 2-3 without them being too OP.
Not saying that warriors and the top competitive tyranid choice, but you can't say "this unit is not good because everything it does someone does it better". That is true for almost every unit in the game, you are either an ultraspecialized elite unit that does one and only one thing, or you can repeat that analysis for it with the same results.
Actually, i'm quite sure that i could do it even for ultra dedicated units like hive guards.
Warriors are not a problem because they do not excel at something. Knights don't do it either, there are units that shoot or melee better for those points. They are good because they are a nice package of shooting assault mobility and durability, but for the points they are outclassed in each of those aspects.
Warriors are not competitive because they don't synergize a lot with the other typical elements of the swarm. They are not swarmy, they are not ultra aggressive, they do not provide backline fire support, they are not psyonic. To work well, they have to be in a list based around warriors, which while fun and semi competitive, it is not our most efficient list.
As you correctly said, they are already "good" for the cost, so you can't really decrease the cost or you risk a fine mess.
The main issue I have with warriors is I want to see more of them. I'd like an incentive to take them currently they do an ok job but we have other tools that do it better. Even in non competitive lists I don't see warriors nearly enough. I agree that lowering their points is not the answer. I'd rather see them go up in points but gain some other ability like giving reroll 1's to hit or wound or 6+FNP within 6" or something. Make them the force multplyer that they should be.
PS: maby a healing effect (Like an apothicary) on non synapse creatures within 6" to represent them forceing their mininions to ignore grevous injuries and get back into the fight.
Timeshadow wrote: I'd rather see them go up in points but gain some other ability like giving reroll 1's to hit or wound or 6+FNP within 6" or something.
Actually they already give 6+++ to units around in leviathan. Warriors are fine. I have won some local tournaments with list based around 2 per 9 leviathan warriors squads.
Timeshadow wrote: I'd rather see them go up in points but gain some other ability like giving reroll 1's to hit or wound or 6+FNP within 6" or something.
Actually they already give 6+++ to units around in leviathan. Warriors are fine. I have won some local tournaments with list based around 2 per 9 leviathan warriors squads.
That list works reasonably well, but you are basing your list on warriors like i said.
He is saying that he wants more of a reason to sprinkle a bit of warriors here and there. Guess we tyranid players are really spoiled, we are not satisfied to have 5 troops and all of them usable, we want them to be usable the way we like it
I guess that i never tried deploying 1 or 2 minimum 60 point squads. They help with synapse and can do some contesting/shadowing in the later turns. They are still 12 bolter shots rerolling ones after all, not something that you can 100% ignore. Maybe just a venom cannon per squad...
pinecone77 wrote: Well, it looks like a fun list. If you are running Behemoth take a look at good ole Hormagaunts. You can smash them into a unit with a strat and do some work, then have them bleed acid all over the foe later. If you are running "lots o'stealers"(tm) Kraken usually does better with the speed boost. But as long as your local meta allows build stuff you enjoy running. You can always add some Stealer cults as brood brothers if you need something "extra". Good luck, and welcome to the Hive Mind!
I might just move the two adrenal glands Trygons into the Spearhead and make the all 'stealer for Kraken, while keeping the big bugs Behemoth.
I am new to 'Nids and building a quite similair army to this myself. Most times I will use one detachment instead of two (fewer points games). Which is preferable for a mixed list: Kraken or Behemoth?
OOE can bring unbelievable output -- once in a while. He's very fragile and needs to be carefully screened.
Using the fight twice stratagem, he recently solo'd a Knight Castellan at a tournament. The look on the Knight player's face was one of complete and utter shock!
However, I won't claim he'll reliably do that; but it's a lot of attacks and I prefer flat 3 damage to d6 damage every day of the week...
He really loves being Kraken, and having Onslaught available, as he's not particularly quick.
Metabolic overdrive is very, very good for him turn 1 if you won't be able to charge with him (which is most games -- he's a turn 2 model, unlike the genestealers).
Speaking of which, I find he works very well with genestealer lists; the stealers are in the opponent's face turn 1 and they force an opponent to deal with them RIGHT NOW. They can also tie up shooting units and force them to fall back and be unable to shoot; all of this helps OOE get there and hurt things.
On the charge, OOE does on average 12.3 damage to a knight with his crushing claws, if you use the re-roll wounds stratagem. Without the re-roll wounds stratagem it's about 9.3 damage.
So with a fight twice stratagem (either the standard fight twice stratagem, or the fight on death stratagem when the knight squishes him), he averages 24.6, which is enough to drop a standard knight. This doesn't include the damage from his tail weapon or the D3 mortals he might do when charging in. I haven't calculated the standard deviation on that, but it's not much of a stretch from there to roll just slightly above average, and drop a 28 wound castellan.
So yeah, he's pretty nasty. Probably the best answer to a knight within the codex. Not much else in-codex has a higher average damage than him. Toxin sac genestealers have a higher average damage output vs knights from a single unit, but they are a lot more expensive, and much more vulnerable.
As for fixing warriors, I would raise them to 21 points each base, and give them +1 str & toughness. This would make them actually useful.
Helps againgst str 4 spam (which kills them very well atm) and slightly mitigates their crappy 4+ save.
The +1 strength should have been a thing a long time ago. We already have genestealers to handle T4 efficiently. If you want to run a fluffy elite killer Hydra warrior squad, you can at str5.
Other than Genestealers what seems to work? I'm not a fan of the models to just spam them (although like one unit is fine) so I'd like to add more than just that to my Nid lists. I like Carnifex so probably will have a good number of those.
Wayniac wrote: Other than Genestealers what seems to work? I'm not a fan of the models to just spam them (although like one unit is fine) so I'd like to add more than just that to my Nid lists. I like Carnifex so probably will have a good number of those.
The better options of the codex Flyrants
Swarmlord
OOE Neurothropes
Malanthrope
Hive Guard
Genestealers
TGants
Rippers
Dakka Fex's
Mieotic Spore
Also good debate on how good but has seen lots of play and still does Hgants
Biovores
Exocrine
Tfex Acid spray
Lord Blackscale wrote: What is the best weapon to use, overall, for the Tyranofex? I really like the rupture cannon but it is so very expensive.
There is no clear winner for it. It really depends on what you use for it, and what the rest of the amry is.
Rupture cannon if you need some las-cannon action. Flamer is good vs elite melee units (as they can not charge it) and flyers. Fearless gaunts are also good with the flamer for controlling opponents mopvement.
Lastly, there are some people who really enjoy the fleshborer hive. The hive stratagem + the 1 ekstar damage stratgem is a good combo for some suprice damage. It is also the cheapest option if you just wanne have a big walking tank.
Lord Blackscale wrote: What is the best weapon to use, overall, for the Tyranofex? I really like the rupture cannon but it is so very expensive.
Acid Spray IMO, With all the 4++ on vehicles, 2 wounds before saves from a Lascannon isnt going to do much honestly, 1 will be saved, so you are looking at 1D6 damage (6 shots, 3 hits, 2 wounds) b.c he is BS 4+ auto hits are very strong, and even tho its only-1AP, most the time they have a 3+/4++ or 4+/5++ so the -1 is good enough.
Also if something like a Smash Captain is against you, they wont charge it. And he is good against Flyers, auto hitting -2 to hit Aeldari Flyers means they will be scared of it.
Yes that is true, Good note, sometimes it or another has the more damage, it is good to not mix them up lol.
Also a Shield captain if i remember can stop OW as well.
I don't think Shield Captains can do that.
But, assuming the Shield Captain has a 3++, it takes...
7 hits 14/2 wounds 7/3 unsaved 14/3 damage
Not enough to kill it. Because, correct me if I'm wrong, Weapon Beast does NOT work in Overwatch anymore.
Edit: If the Shield Captain only has a 4++, then it'd die on average, if you're still S7. Unless he spends a CP to reroll a save or has Victor of the Blood Games...
On the topic of overwatch ignorers, beware Warp Talons. They’ve got access to +2 charge distance, now (and a full charge reroll in Khorne soup). If there’s a Raptorial Host in reserve, be very careful with your acidfex (whose double-tap does specify your shooting phase) as they can charge over your screen - I’d recommend practicing your bubble-wrapping if Chaos are in your meta.
Verthane wrote: OOE can bring unbelievable output -- once in a while. He's very fragile and needs to be carefully screened.
Using the fight twice stratagem, he recently solo'd a Knight Castellan at a tournament. The look on the Knight player's face was one of complete and utter shock!
However, I won't claim he'll reliably do that; but it's a lot of attacks and I prefer flat 3 damage to d6 damage every day of the week...
He really loves being Kraken, and having Onslaught available, as he's not particularly quick.
Metabolic overdrive is very, very good for him turn 1 if you won't be able to charge with him (which is most games -- he's a turn 2 model, unlike the genestealers).
Speaking of which, I find he works very well with genestealer lists; the stealers are in the opponent's face turn 1 and they force an opponent to deal with them RIGHT NOW. They can also tie up shooting units and force them to fall back and be unable to shoot; all of this helps OOE get there and hurt things.
OOE is unbelievably strong against vehicles, primaris veterans and elite models.
And also against plague bearers is not bad at all as he has a +2 to hit on a charge (this usually means a hitting on a 2+ or worst case scenario on a 3+, both cases re rolling 1s).
Verthane wrote: OOE can bring unbelievable output -- once in a while. He's very fragile and needs to be carefully screened.
Using the fight twice stratagem, he recently solo'd a Knight Castellan at a tournament. The look on the Knight player's face was one of complete and utter shock!
However, I won't claim he'll reliably do that; but it's a lot of attacks and I prefer flat 3 damage to d6 damage every day of the week...
He really loves being Kraken, and having Onslaught available, as he's not particularly quick.
Metabolic overdrive is very, very good for him turn 1 if you won't be able to charge with him (which is most games -- he's a turn 2 model, unlike the genestealers).
Speaking of which, I find he works very well with genestealer lists; the stealers are in the opponent's face turn 1 and they force an opponent to deal with them RIGHT NOW. They can also tie up shooting units and force them to fall back and be unable to shoot; all of this helps OOE get there and hurt things.
OOE is unbelievably strong against vehicles, primaris veterans and elite models.
And also against plague bearers is not bad at all as he has a +2 to hit on a charge (this usually means a hitting on a 2+ or worst case scenario on a 3+, both cases re rolling 1s).
I am starting to include it again in my lists.
There are far better models in both Tyr (and GSC) for dealing with massed 2w "Primaris Like" models.
Can't tell you the same for vehicles but I find ludicrous that he doesn't even have a FNP like save but only a 3+
Against any serious melee units he's dead weight with no Invulnerable save.
He's pure offense and zero defence, relying completely on character protection
Against any serious melee units he's dead weight with no Invulnerable save.
He's pure offense and zero defence, relying completely on character protection
So? Any melee threat against nids will be running away from Genestealers, keep him near them for a turn if you need to. He will be going after tanks not DP's
Against any serious melee units he's dead weight with no Invulnerable save.
He's pure offense and zero defence, relying completely on character protection
So? Any melee threat against nids will be running away from Genestealers, keep him near them for a turn if you need to. He will be going after tanks not DP's
Thoroughly disagreeing here. There are much scarier melee units in other armies (especially in the Chaos faction) now that Genestealer are only "good" when dealing damage first for their cost. On the shooting side T'au and DE eat Genestealers alive with supreme S5 Shooting (and multiple overwatch) or hiding in open-topped transports with huge mobility.
We are not talking about other armies, we are talking about what we bring to the table. Other armies are pointless when saying what we can and can not bring.
If you want to say "Other armies can do it better' then dont play nids and go play those other armies.
I am already doing this. Being sincere about the lack of competitiveness of current Tyranids is the only saving grace for our 2019 CA changes. If our voice isn't going to be heard because we think that we're fine (whilst we really aren't) then it's better to loudly express our concerning feelings, even resulting somewhat repetitive.
CA 2018 brought almost nothing to us Tyranids (only Swarmlord and Broodlord were truly a lifesaver for our lists) if not lower-end scale changes that needed to be addressed differently by different margins (i.e. Many more changes affecting the unused part of the codex and hefty point decreases that didn't happen);let's not repeat the same error this time
KurtAngle2 wrote: I am already doing this. Being sincere about the lack of competitiveness of current Tyranids is the only saving grace for our 2019 CA changes. If our voice isn't going to be heard because we think that we're fine (whilst we really aren't) then it's better to loudly express our concerning feelings, even resulting somewhat repetitive.
CA 2018 brought almost nothing to us Tyranids (only Swarmlord and Broodlord were truly a lifesaver for our lists) if not lower-end scale changes that needed to be addressed differently by different margins (i.e. Many more changes affecting the unused part of the codex and hefty point decreases that didn't happen);let's not repeat the same error this time
What do you define by "lack of competitiveness"? Because right now tyranids are pulling decent results. Sure, we soup in GSC, but so does everyone who has access to soup.
If your "lack of competitivness" means "there are factions that perform better than us", well that is normal. Otherwise we should be expecting heavy nerfs. As far as factions (and soups) go, we are WELL above the 50% line of factions. All the top rankings of big events in the last months had honest amounts of nid (and GSC) lists.
By the way, we can say whatever we want in here. GW takes DakkaDakka in zero consideration when it comes to balancing, and i can't say that i disagree with this decision.
KurtAngle2 wrote: I am already doing this. Being sincere about the lack of competitiveness of current Tyranids is the only saving grace for our 2019 CA changes. If our voice isn't going to be heard because we think that we're fine (whilst we really aren't) then it's better to loudly express our concerning feelings, even resulting somewhat repetitive.
CA 2018 brought almost nothing to us Tyranids (only Swarmlord and Broodlord were truly a lifesaver for our lists) if not lower-end scale changes that needed to be addressed differently by different margins (i.e. Many more changes affecting the unused part of the codex and hefty point decreases that didn't happen);let's not repeat the same error this time
This. When our codex dropped we were top tier. Even if they had only made the rule of 3 change we would have still been top tier. Malanthropes are overpriced for a -1 shroud. Look at eldar for comparison. 120 pts should be fair. Nerf to lictor is unusable. Hiveguard are good anti tank, but we don't have any ANTI KNIGHT. We don't have a LoW. Swarmy is fair price now. Broodlords are better as are warriors, but still points changes alone arn't going to fix this. I don't think I have seen a single warrior played both before and after the update.
Everything is Genestealer, HT, swarmy, hivguard, termies, neuro for synapse,
Carnifexes are cheaper but suffer the same issue as Leman Russ, no invul save.
Tervigons while cool in theory really need to be 9 wounds for character protection.
Biovores went up, only way to really deal with knights via mortal wounds from far away.
We need a LoW that isn't Apoc scale, we are one of the only remaining armies without one.
But the main issue comes from the nerfing of stratagems and Hive fleet doctrines. Chagnes to fly, which are reverted back helped a bit. Deep strike changes was a big nerf to us since a lot of our assault armies get shot up now.
The last GT i went to had 130+ players, there were 2 pure nid players (granted a fair amount of GSC) but blah.
KurtAngle2 wrote: I am already doing this. Being sincere about the lack of competitiveness of current Tyranids is the only saving grace for our 2019 CA changes. If our voice isn't going to be heard because we think that we're fine (whilst we really aren't) then it's better to loudly express our concerning feelings, even resulting somewhat repetitive.
CA 2018 brought almost nothing to us Tyranids (only Swarmlord and Broodlord were truly a lifesaver for our lists) if not lower-end scale changes that needed to be addressed differently by different margins (i.e. Many more changes affecting the unused part of the codex and hefty point decreases that didn't happen);let's not repeat the same error this time
What do you define by "lack of competitiveness"? Because right now tyranids are pulling decent results. Sure, we soup in GSC, but so does everyone who has access to soup.
If your "lack of competitiveness" means "there are factions that perform better than us", well that is normal. Otherwise we should be expecting heavy nerfs. As far as factions (and soups) go, we are WELL above the 50% line of factions.
All the top rankings of big events in the last months had honest amounts of nid (and GSC) lists.
By the way, we can say whatever we want in here. GW takes DakkaDakka in zero consideration when it comes to balancing, and i can't say that i disagree with this decision.
Lack of competitiveness as in "out of 41 units our Codex, 10 see play at best whilst leaving 75% of the Codex COMPLETELY outclassed and hence unused". Also remember that whilst other codices might also have a low number of viable units, they have to compete alongside 7+ codices for the same role whilst Tyr faction is only comprised of Tyr and GSC (and possibly AM). Having a large number of units that does not serve a purpose when the total number or datasheets between the 2 codices is between 60 and 70 does not make a faction competitive at all.
We're merely an allied "Swarmlord + Genestealers" Detachment for GSC, nothing else matters right now.
KurtAngle2 wrote: I am already doing this. Being sincere about the lack of competitiveness of current Tyranids is the only saving grace for our 2019 CA changes. If our voice isn't going to be heard because we think that we're fine (whilst we really aren't) then it's better to loudly express our concerning feelings, even resulting somewhat repetitive.
CA 2018 brought almost nothing to us Tyranids (only Swarmlord and Broodlord were truly a lifesaver for our lists) if not lower-end scale changes that needed to be addressed differently by different margins (i.e. Many more changes affecting the unused part of the codex and hefty point decreases that didn't happen);let's not repeat the same error this time
This. When our codex dropped we were top tier. Even if they had only made the rule of 3 change we would have still been top tier. Malanthropes are overpriced for a -1 shroud. Look at eldar for comparison. 120 pts should be fair. Nerf to lictor is unusable. Hiveguard are good anti tank, but we don't have any ANTI KNIGHT. We don't have a LoW. Swarmy is fair price now. Broodlords are better as are warriors, but still points changes alone arn't going to fix this. I don't think I have seen a single warrior played both before and after the update.
Everything is Genestealer, HT, swarmy, hivguard, termies, neuro for synapse,
Carnifexes are cheaper but suffer the same issue as Leman Russ, no invul save.
Tervigons while cool in theory really need to be 9 wounds for character protection.
Biovores went up, only way to really deal with knights via mortal wounds from far away.
We need a LoW that isn't Apoc scale, we are one of the only remaining armies without one.
But the main issue comes from the nerfing of stratagems and Hive fleet doctrines. Chagnes to fly, which are reverted back helped a bit. Deep strike changes was a big nerf to us since a lot of our assault armies get shot up now.
The last GT i went to had 130+ players, there were 2 pure nid players (granted a fair amount of GSC) but blah.
Exactly this. We got repeteadly nerfed by both general FAQs AND targeted nerfs at our codex that made used units REAL TRASH and not worth it anymore (most nerfed army of 8TH if you think about it, last but not least the latest round of post FAQs that SPECIFICALLY nerfed us for no reason at all).
CA 2019 is the last deadline: if GW doesn't apply HEFTY and SUBSTANTIAL buffs to the Tyranids as whole, we had better (if you haven't done already) play GSC or wait for 9TH because we're slowly falling to Low Tier as releases go on.
I might just be playing Apoc anyways, will have to see how that works out. If i can play a 3-4k game within the same time window of a 2k, i for sure will do that. I get to play with all my models/units i like then.
Honestly I win pretty much every game I play using tyranids, not counting the friendly ones where I like to try stuff like tervigon or maybe harpy, etc.
I found my balance and is a hybrid between an aggressive list and a Gant carpet. The genestealers, broodlords, swarmlord, flyrant, hormagauts keep high the pressure dealing damages or creating impassable walls, while the termagants score objectives midfield or in my deployment zone.
And broodlords are amazing when surrounded by infantry. Even if they don't hit as hard as a Patriarch, they still have some interesting tricks under the sleeve.
Even in tournaments (unfortunately just small ones, max 20 people) worst case scenario I got a tie, or even if I go 3-0 sometimes I might get 2nd because someone is higher.
But the most important thing is that i have a lot of fun playing tyranids. Every single time!
Is amazing the stuff that your units can do if properly used, and most of the times I can easily win a game without even charging, but just creating a wall and scoring objectives.
Almost on every single game I can decide to play on killing the opponent or maybe to play on the objectives of the mission. Depending on opponent or maybe mission.
And most of the times I am not afraid of going second, but I actually prefer it.
Master Chief VF wrote: Honestly I win pretty much every game I play using tyranids, not counting the friendly ones where I like to try stuff like tervigon or maybe harpy, etc.
I found my balance and is a hybrid between an aggressive list and a Gant carpet. The genestealers, broodlords, swarmlord, flyrant, hormagauts keep high the pressure dealing damages or creating impassable walls, while the termagants score objectives midfield or in my deployment zone.
And broodlords are amazing when surrounded by infantry. Even if they don't hit as hard as a Patriarch, they still have some interesting tricks under the sleeve.
Even in tournaments (unfortunately just small ones, max 20 people) worst case scenario I got a tie, or even if I go 3-0 sometimes I might get 2nd because someone is higher.
But the most important thing is that i have a lot of fun playing tyranids. Every single time!
Is amazing the stuff that your units can do if properly used, and most of the times I can easily win a game without even charging, but just creating a wall and scoring objectives.
Almost on every single game I can decide to play on killing the opponent or maybe to play on the objectives of the mission. Depending on opponent or maybe mission.
And most of the times I am not afraid of going second, but I actually prefer it.
Pretty much my own experience, but going by his definitions i guess that he plays ITC. In ITC you go ultra alpha hyper aggressive or you go home, so clearly only stealers and hive guards work.
No, I mostly play ETC but the same list I am playing is working quite well also in ITC as I have quite solid kill points (easier unit to kill is 24 Hormagaunts hit on a -1) and a good board control.
Anyway gang busters (reaper) is always a +4 for the opponent.
But in ETC is working way better than in ITC because of the maelstrom missions, as this is a list that achieve very easily almost every maelstrom card that I draw, specially now that you can discard up to 6 before the game (in ETC you write on your army list the cards discarded).
I just never bought a Malanthrope because in many tournaments I cannot use Forge World and I am lazy to change list for FW permitted or not permitted tournaments, so I always use the venomthropes...
KurtAngle2 wrote: I am already doing this. Being sincere about the lack of competitiveness of current Tyranids is the only saving grace for our 2019 CA changes. If our voice isn't going to be heard because we think that we're fine (whilst we really aren't) then it's better to loudly express our concerning feelings, even resulting somewhat repetitive.
CA 2018 brought almost nothing to us Tyranids (only Swarmlord and Broodlord were truly a lifesaver for our lists) if not lower-end scale changes that needed to be addressed differently by different margins (i.e. Many more changes affecting the unused part of the codex and hefty point decreases that didn't happen);let's not repeat the same error this time
This. When our codex dropped we were top tier. Even if they had only made the rule of 3 change we would have still been top tier. Malanthropes are overpriced for a -1 shroud. Look at eldar for comparison. 120 pts should be fair. Nerf to lictor is unusable. Hiveguard are good anti tank, but we don't have any ANTI KNIGHT. We don't have a LoW. Swarmy is fair price now. Broodlords are better as are warriors, but still points changes alone arn't going to fix this. I don't think I have seen a single warrior played both before and after the update.
Everything is Genestealer, HT, swarmy, hivguard, termies, neuro for synapse,
Carnifexes are cheaper but suffer the same issue as Leman Russ, no invul save.
Tervigons while cool in theory really need to be 9 wounds for character protection.
Biovores went up, only way to really deal with knights via mortal wounds from far away.
We need a LoW that isn't Apoc scale, we are one of the only remaining armies without one.
But the main issue comes from the nerfing of stratagems and Hive fleet doctrines. Chagnes to fly, which are reverted back helped a bit. Deep strike changes was a big nerf to us since a lot of our assault armies get shot up now.
The last GT i went to had 130+ players, there were 2 pure nid players (granted a fair amount of GSC) but blah.
Wait, how are Hive Guard with Shockcannons not anti-Knight?
Master Chief VF wrote: No, I mostly play ETC but the same list I am playing is working quite well also in ITC as I have quite solid kill points (easier unit to kill is 24 Hormagaunts hit on a -1) and a good board control.
Anyway gang busters (reaper) is always a +4 for the opponent.
But in ETC is working way better than in ITC because of the maelstrom missions, as this is a list that achieve very easily almost every maelstrom card that I draw, specially now that you can discard up to 6 before the game (in ETC you write on your army list the cards discarded).
I just never bought a Malanthrope because in many tournaments I cannot use Forge World and I am lazy to change list for FW permitted or not permitted tournaments, so I always use the venomthropes...
Is this the list you posted in the Army list threads?
Honestly, Ill take my Guard list with Vultures, a couple of Leman russ punishers and shred the hell out of that list. Once you lose your venomthropes its going to be rough. It bleeds secondaries.
Maybe you are having better luck due to ETC, but in ITC its just not going to happen. Too much soup. To many list you have to build against. Top table you will face a Knight+Soup list once. Chaos Soup/Daemons once, a horde list (likely orks or shoota star). GSC with their crazy OPDS and ambush shenanigans, granted i havn't played them since their Recent Nerf. Possibly Necrons now (which I also Play ) and are doing good solely because of the kngiht meta. Eldar list (flier spam, and or Ynarri but probably not now) and/or Drukhari.
Eldar and GSC got hit hard in the latest FAQ. Castallen soup also took a hit, but not much. You see more triple knight list now.
In a 5 round GT if I went 3-2 I would call that beating the odds.
Now its quite possible your a better player than I, but there is a reason you dont see more people playing Nids in the ITC circuit, and with the exception of the LVO 2018 when Flyrant Spam was still around before Rule of 3 Nids haven't really faired to well.
Now Tyranids Early 8th (say only implementing the rule of 3 to stop flier spam) but keeping our Points costed and stratagems as released would be a different story.
KurtAngle2 wrote: I am already doing this. Being sincere about the lack of competitiveness of current Tyranids is the only saving grace for our 2019 CA changes. If our voice isn't going to be heard because we think that we're fine (whilst we really aren't) then it's better to loudly express our concerning feelings, even resulting somewhat repetitive.
CA 2018 brought almost nothing to us Tyranids (only Swarmlord and Broodlord were truly a lifesaver for our lists) if not lower-end scale changes that needed to be addressed differently by different margins (i.e. Many more changes affecting the unused part of the codex and hefty point decreases that didn't happen);let's not repeat the same error this time
This. When our codex dropped we were top tier. Even if they had only made the rule of 3 change we would have still been top tier. Malanthropes are overpriced for a -1 shroud. Look at eldar for comparison. 120 pts should be fair. Nerf to lictor is unusable. Hiveguard are good anti tank, but we don't have any ANTI KNIGHT. We don't have a LoW. Swarmy is fair price now. Broodlords are better as are warriors, but still points changes alone arn't going to fix this. I don't think I have seen a single warrior played both before and after the update.
Everything is Genestealer, HT, swarmy, hivguard, termies, neuro for synapse,
Carnifexes are cheaper but suffer the same issue as Leman Russ, no invul save.
Tervigons while cool in theory really need to be 9 wounds for character protection.
Biovores went up, only way to really deal with knights via mortal wounds from far away.
We need a LoW that isn't Apoc scale, we are one of the only remaining armies without one.
But the main issue comes from the nerfing of stratagems and Hive fleet doctrines. Chagnes to fly, which are reverted back helped a bit. Deep strike changes was a big nerf to us since a lot of our assault armies get shot up now.
The last GT i went to had 130+ players, there were 2 pure nid players (granted a fair amount of GSC) but blah.
Wait, how are Hive Guard with Shockcannons not anti-Knight?
Because of several reasons.
FIrst you have to move and have line of sight, which means they can see you, and you are know target priority 1 of enemy.
2nd, STR 7 vs T8 to a 3+/4++
6 Hivegaurd (with kronos and assuming you didn't move and get to use reroll 1's) is doing 3.11 wounds (before mortals which I will get to in a second). If you take away Kronos its 2.67 which is more likely given the range of the weapon.
Lets say you shoot twice for 3 Cp. Now you have done 5.34 wounds to a 4++
Now half of those 5.34 wounds is going to be 4+ ( so you are looking at another 2.5ish wounds). If your luck and get 6s you get D3 wounds, so 2 on average.
Max potential wounds, if you get 6's on all your wound rolls is 5.34 + 15= 20 wounds. THis is under favorable circumstances with great luck on your side. More likely you are doing 7.34 wounds on average (with 3 cp a turn). Not even enough to degrade them.
Thats how hive guard shock cannon are not anti tank.
EDIT:
Kronos Hive Guard (x6) with Impaler Cannons, and shoot twice do 9.33 wounds on average to a knight of T8/ 3+/4++
Longer range, and you can hide, and you do more damage on average. And your not gonna get shot of the board T1 or T2. Impaler Hive Guard are the best we got, and that still not dropping them a tier.
Guys don't rely on Hive guards (both types) even against transports, because once you shoot twice with SMA nothing else can shoot at what just disembarked from that transport, so those units are safe for that shooting phase.
And once they struggle even to kill a rhino is quite sad...
You cannot even rely on the second salvo for opening screens or bubble holes, because also hive commander has to be used BEFORE Single Minded Annihilation.
Master Chief VF wrote: No, I mostly play ETC but the same list I am playing is working quite well also in ITC as I have quite solid kill points (easier unit to kill is 24 Hormagaunts hit on a -1) and a good board control.
Anyway gang busters (reaper) is always a +4 for the opponent.
But in ETC is working way better than in ITC because of the maelstrom missions, as this is a list that achieve very easily almost every maelstrom card that I draw, specially now that you can discard up to 6 before the game (in ETC you write on your army list the cards discarded).
I just never bought a Malanthrope because in many tournaments I cannot use Forge World and I am lazy to change list for FW permitted or not permitted tournaments, so I always use the venomthropes...
Is this the list you posted in the Army list threads?
Honestly, Ill take my Guard list with Vultures, a couple of Leman russ punishers and shred the hell out of that list. Once you lose your venomthropes its going to be rough. It bleeds secondaries.
Maybe you are having better luck due to ETC, but in ITC its just not going to happen. Too much soup. To many list you have to build against. Top table you will face a Knight+Soup list once. Chaos Soup/Daemons once, a horde list (likely orks or shoota star). GSC with their crazy OPDS and ambush shenanigans, granted i havn't played them since their Recent Nerf. Possibly Necrons now (which I also Play ) and are doing good solely because of the kngiht meta. Eldar list (flier spam, and or Ynarri but probably not now) and/or Drukhari.
Eldar and GSC got hit hard in the latest FAQ. Castallen soup also took a hit, but not much. You see more triple knight list now.
In a 5 round GT if I went 3-2 I would call that beating the odds.
Now its quite possible your a better player than I, but there is a reason you dont see more people playing Nids in the ITC circuit, and with the exception of the LVO 2018 when Flyrant Spam was still around before Rule of 3 Nids haven't really faired to well.
Now Tyranids Early 8th (say only implementing the rule of 3 to stop flier spam) but keeping our Points costed and stratagems as released would be a different story.
KurtAngle2 wrote: I am already doing this. Being sincere about the lack of competitiveness of current Tyranids is the only saving grace for our 2019 CA changes. If our voice isn't going to be heard because we think that we're fine (whilst we really aren't) then it's better to loudly express our concerning feelings, even resulting somewhat repetitive.
CA 2018 brought almost nothing to us Tyranids (only Swarmlord and Broodlord were truly a lifesaver for our lists) if not lower-end scale changes that needed to be addressed differently by different margins (i.e. Many more changes affecting the unused part of the codex and hefty point decreases that didn't happen);let's not repeat the same error this time
This. When our codex dropped we were top tier. Even if they had only made the rule of 3 change we would have still been top tier. Malanthropes are overpriced for a -1 shroud. Look at eldar for comparison. 120 pts should be fair. Nerf to lictor is unusable. Hiveguard are good anti tank, but we don't have any ANTI KNIGHT. We don't have a LoW. Swarmy is fair price now. Broodlords are better as are warriors, but still points changes alone arn't going to fix this. I don't think I have seen a single warrior played both before and after the update.
Everything is Genestealer, HT, swarmy, hivguard, termies, neuro for synapse,
Carnifexes are cheaper but suffer the same issue as Leman Russ, no invul save.
Tervigons while cool in theory really need to be 9 wounds for character protection.
Biovores went up, only way to really deal with knights via mortal wounds from far away.
We need a LoW that isn't Apoc scale, we are one of the only remaining armies without one.
But the main issue comes from the nerfing of stratagems and Hive fleet doctrines. Chagnes to fly, which are reverted back helped a bit. Deep strike changes was a big nerf to us since a lot of our assault armies get shot up now.
The last GT i went to had 130+ players, there were 2 pure nid players (granted a fair amount of GSC) but blah.
Wait, how are Hive Guard with Shockcannons not anti-Knight?
Because of several reasons.
FIrst you have to move and have line of sight, which means they can see you, and you are know target priority 1 of enemy.
2nd, STR 7 vs T8 to a 3+/4++
6 Hivegaurd (with kronos and assuming you didn't move and get to use reroll 1's) is doing 3.11 wounds (before mortals which I will get to in a second). If you take away Kronos its 2.67 which is more likely given the range of the weapon.
Lets say you shoot twice for 3 Cp. Now you have done 5.34 wounds to a 4++
Now half of those 5.34 wounds is going to be 4+ ( so you are looking at another 2.5ish wounds). If your luck and get 6s you get D3 wounds, so 2 on average.
Max potential wounds, if you get 6's on all your wound rolls is 5.34 + 15= 20 wounds. THis is under favorable circumstances with great luck on your side. More likely you are doing 7.34 wounds on average (with 3 cp a turn). Not even enough to degrade them.
Thats how hive guard shock cannon are not anti tank.
EDIT:
Kronos Hive Guard (x6) with Impaler Cannons, and shoot twice do 9.33 wounds on average to a knight of T8/ 3+/4++
Longer range, and you can hide, and you do more damage on average. And your not gonna get shot of the board T1 or T2. Impaler Hive Guard are the best we got, and that still not dropping them a tier.
I think you made a slight mistake in calculating shock guard mortal wounds. You took half of their dealt wounds for the mortal wound generation, but they're wounding on a 5+ on those shots. So effectively you have them causing mws on half of those 5+ wounds (a 6+), instead of on each 4+ wound roll.
I'm getting 18.6 total damage dealt for six double shooting stationary kronos guard (slightly over 15 if jormungandr). They still die horribly after, but they definitely take a chunk out of a knight.
Spoiler:
24*.78*.33*.5*2=6.2 dmg for the regular hits
24*.78*.33=6.2 additional dmg for the wound rolls of 4 and 5
24*.78*.17*2=6.2 additional dmg for the wound rolls of 6
18.6 in total
Let me know if I messed up somewhere, it's late here.
Is this the list you posted in the Army list threads?
Honestly, Ill take my Guard list with Vultures, a couple of Leman russ punishers and shred the hell out of that list. Once you lose your venomthropes its going to be rough. It bleeds secondaries.
Man there is so much optimism in here.
You are not considering many factors like:
In some tournaments there is no FW, but anyway I think I shouldn't complain about it and just be prepared and know that I might get something that for 200 points has more than 50 shots. So I should know how to face it.
Mission (I guess you are mostly playing ITC so pretty much every mission is the same, but in ETC and considering maelstrom missions and kill points on every single game is different. I like ITC but I prefer ETC because of much more variety).
The field that may allow me to hide important units (like venomthropes and Swarmlord). And counting that I am deploying like 140 models you are not going to shoot those units on your T1 (except for mortars and basilisks), not even with the flyers, because you won't find LoS for those as you won't have any space do leave that big base the vultures have.
The deployment and the distances between the 2 forces.
Whos going first.
Who's having the initiative. Sometimes going first does not mean to have the initiative... Because even if someone is going first but is not going to do many damages and the counter attack will be harder or he will be in an uncomfortable spot for 1 or 2 turns, he has no initiative on the opponent.
And double activations in the fight phase and splitted double activations like overrun + adrenal sourge that might bring you to contact very far stuff, preventing it from shooting and being safe from shooting and making other important units safe from shooting, like the broodlords for example.
The stratagem prepared positions that is helping quite a lot on case you are not going first as the genestealers will.have 4+, the little ones will have 5+ and the Swarmlord and his pals will.be on a 2+. Everything combined with -1 to hit aura possible long range charges so there's no need to expose yourself too much, makes really a great difference.
I dunno your list but by my experience I faced 3 times something like:
-3 vultures
-3 punisher hq (the ones with +6" range and from the specialist detachment)
-various characters HQ and Elites
-60 guardsmen
-3 scout sentinel
-9 mortars
And maybe other stuff that I don't really remember...
Pretty standard list for people that like to roll a lot of dices.
But anyway I always won.
Once i seized initiative, but I was in the conditions to give proper value on that and not waste it (some stuff advanced). But at the same time if I was not able to seize the initiative (like 83% of the times) most of the stuff was at a safe range, the Swarmlord able to redeploy and prepared positions for everything in cover. So even if I was not counting on it, it was something that I considered and I got rewarded.
Another time it was a much harder fight where the opponent was going first, but I set the deployment in pretty much the same way. I won but not that much, and in that game the Broodlords did some heavy lifting.
And the last time the opponent did a huge mistake scouting 9" forward with the sentinels after knowing that for sure I was going to start, and he got horribly punished for that.
And by the way I've noticed that in case the opponent has no units with fly (not flyers, they just need to be able to fly), he has no chances to win against that list.
There are not many, but the ones without fly most of the times I don't even need to charge for being able to win the game but I can just win by moving models. At least in ETC and GW formats.
Master Chief VF wrote: No, I mostly play ETC but the same list I am playing is working quite well also in ITC as I have quite solid kill points (easier unit to kill is 24 Hormagaunts hit on a -1) and a good board control.
Anyway gang busters (reaper) is always a +4 for the opponent.
But in ETC is working way better than in ITC because of the maelstrom missions, as this is a list that achieve very easily almost every maelstrom card that I draw, specially now that you can discard up to 6 before the game (in ETC you write on your army list the cards discarded).
I just never bought a Malanthrope because in many tournaments I cannot use Forge World and I am lazy to change list for FW permitted or not permitted tournaments, so I always use the venomthropes...
Is this the list you posted in the Army list threads?
Honestly, Ill take my Guard list with Vultures, a couple of Leman russ punishers and shred the hell out of that list. Once you lose your venomthropes its going to be rough. It bleeds secondaries.
Maybe you are having better luck due to ETC, but in ITC its just not going to happen. Too much soup. To many list you have to build against. Top table you will face a Knight+Soup list once. Chaos Soup/Daemons once, a horde list (likely orks or shoota star). GSC with their crazy OPDS and ambush shenanigans, granted i havn't played them since their Recent Nerf. Possibly Necrons now (which I also Play ) and are doing good solely because of the kngiht meta. Eldar list (flier spam, and or Ynarri but probably not now) and/or Drukhari.
Eldar and GSC got hit hard in the latest FAQ. Castallen soup also took a hit, but not much. You see more triple knight list now.
In a 5 round GT if I went 3-2 I would call that beating the odds.
Now its quite possible your a better player than I, but there is a reason you dont see more people playing Nids in the ITC circuit, and with the exception of the LVO 2018 when Flyrant Spam was still around before Rule of 3 Nids haven't really faired to well.
Now Tyranids Early 8th (say only implementing the rule of 3 to stop flier spam) but keeping our Points costed and stratagems as released would be a different story.
KurtAngle2 wrote: I am already doing this. Being sincere about the lack of competitiveness of current Tyranids is the only saving grace for our 2019 CA changes. If our voice isn't going to be heard because we think that we're fine (whilst we really aren't) then it's better to loudly express our concerning feelings, even resulting somewhat repetitive.
CA 2018 brought almost nothing to us Tyranids (only Swarmlord and Broodlord were truly a lifesaver for our lists) if not lower-end scale changes that needed to be addressed differently by different margins (i.e. Many more changes affecting the unused part of the codex and hefty point decreases that didn't happen);let's not repeat the same error this time
This. When our codex dropped we were top tier. Even if they had only made the rule of 3 change we would have still been top tier. Malanthropes are overpriced for a -1 shroud. Look at eldar for comparison. 120 pts should be fair. Nerf to lictor is unusable. Hiveguard are good anti tank, but we don't have any ANTI KNIGHT. We don't have a LoW. Swarmy is fair price now. Broodlords are better as are warriors, but still points changes alone arn't going to fix this. I don't think I have seen a single warrior played both before and after the update.
Everything is Genestealer, HT, swarmy, hivguard, termies, neuro for synapse,
Carnifexes are cheaper but suffer the same issue as Leman Russ, no invul save.
Tervigons while cool in theory really need to be 9 wounds for character protection.
Biovores went up, only way to really deal with knights via mortal wounds from far away.
We need a LoW that isn't Apoc scale, we are one of the only remaining armies without one.
But the main issue comes from the nerfing of stratagems and Hive fleet doctrines. Chagnes to fly, which are reverted back helped a bit. Deep strike changes was a big nerf to us since a lot of our assault armies get shot up now.
The last GT i went to had 130+ players, there were 2 pure nid players (granted a fair amount of GSC) but blah.
Wait, how are Hive Guard with Shockcannons not anti-Knight?
Because of several reasons.
FIrst you have to move and have line of sight, which means they can see you, and you are know target priority 1 of enemy.
2nd, STR 7 vs T8 to a 3+/4++
6 Hivegaurd (with kronos and assuming you didn't move and get to use reroll 1's) is doing 3.11 wounds (before mortals which I will get to in a second). If you take away Kronos its 2.67 which is more likely given the range of the weapon.
Lets say you shoot twice for 3 Cp. Now you have done 5.34 wounds to a 4++
Now half of those 5.34 wounds is going to be 4+ ( so you are looking at another 2.5ish wounds). If your luck and get 6s you get D3 wounds, so 2 on average.
Max potential wounds, if you get 6's on all your wound rolls is 5.34 + 15= 20 wounds. THis is under favorable circumstances with great luck on your side. More likely you are doing 7.34 wounds on average (with 3 cp a turn). Not even enough to degrade them.
Thats how hive guard shock cannon are not anti tank.
EDIT:
Kronos Hive Guard (x6) with Impaler Cannons, and shoot twice do 9.33 wounds on average to a knight of T8/ 3+/4++
Longer range, and you can hide, and you do more damage on average. And your not gonna get shot of the board T1 or T2. Impaler Hive Guard are the best we got, and that still not dropping them a tier.
I think you made a slight mistake in calculating shock guard mortal wounds. You took half of their dealt wounds for the mortal wound generation, but they're wounding on a 5+ on those shots. So effectively you have them causing mws on half of those 5+ wounds (a 6+), instead of on each 4+ wound roll.
I'm getting 18.6 total damage dealt for six double shooting stationary kronos guard (slightly over 15 if jormungandr). They still die horribly after, but they definitely take a chunk out of a knight.
Spoiler:
24*.78*.33*.5*2=6.2 dmg for the regular hits
24*.78*.33=6.2 additional dmg for the wound rolls of 4 and 5
24*.78*.17*2=6.2 additional dmg for the wound rolls of 6
18.6 in total
Let me know if I messed up somewhere, it's late here.
I went to the math hammer website. I think I did the Mortal wound input right. ON the options I did 1 mortal wound on 4+ and for 6+ i did D3.
Its giving me 14.22 wounds vs T8 3+/4++ with Kronos and Shoot twice. 13.33 without Kronos.
But like you said your gonna die next turn. If you deploy in the open and don't get first turn your risking getting shot before you can do anything. So its unlikely you will get the Kronos buff.
Besides, the knight will just pay the 1 CP to shoot at top shelf anyway. And you have the range issue. 24+6" move and you may have issues reaching some stuff.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Master Chief VF wrote: Guys don't rely on Hive guards (both types) even against transports, because once you shoot twice with SMA nothing else can shoot at what just disembarked from that transport, so those units are safe for that shooting phase.
And once they struggle even to kill a rhino is quite sad...
You cannot even rely on the second salvo for opening screens or bubble holes, because also hive commander has to be used BEFORE Single Minded Annihilation.
Uh....not sure what you are getting at here?
I assume you are referencing the fact that you have to use SMA at end of shooting phase.
A single unit of 6 Kronos IMpaler cannon hive guard will deal 12.29 wounds to a Rhino on average NOT using SMA>
So you can shoot the rhino, kill it and then...
You can shoot stuff that disembarked from a transport.
You use devilgants to clear screens. 90 shots or 180 with shoot twice.
Do shots should be able to clear screens and then you can Hive Commander in.
So order of operations would be.
Shoot Hive GUard kill tank.
Devilgants kill screen
Hive commander move the Genestealerers through the gap.
SMA unit of your choice.
Is this the list you posted in the Army list threads?
Honestly, Ill take my Guard list with Vultures, a couple of Leman russ punishers and shred the hell out of that list. Once you lose your venomthropes its going to be rough. It bleeds secondaries.
Man there is so much optimism in here.
You are not considering many factors like:
In some tournaments there is no FW, but anyway I think I shouldn't complain about it and just be prepared and know that I might get something that for 200 points has more than 50 shots. So I should know how to face it.
Mission (I guess you are mostly playing ITC so pretty much every mission is the same, but in ETC and considering maelstrom missions and kill points on every single game is different. I like ITC but I prefer ETC because of much more variety).
The field that may allow me to hide important units (like venomthropes and Swarmlord). And counting that I am deploying like 140 models you are not going to shoot those units on your T1 (except for mortars and basilisks), not even with the flyers, because you won't find LoS for those as you won't have any space do leave that big base the vultures have.
The deployment and the distances between the 2 forces.
Whos going first.
Who's having the initiative. Sometimes going first does not mean to have the initiative... Because even if someone is going first but is not going to do many damages and the counter attack will be harder or he will be in an uncomfortable spot for 1 or 2 turns, he has no initiative on the opponent.
And double activations in the fight phase and splitted double activations like overrun + adrenal sourge that might bring you to contact very far stuff, preventing it from shooting and being safe from shooting and making other important units safe from shooting, like the broodlords for example.
The stratagem prepared positions that is helping quite a lot on case you are not going first as the genestealers will.have 4+, the little ones will have 5+ and the Swarmlord and his pals will.be on a 2+. Everything combined with -1 to hit aura possible long range charges so there's no need to expose yourself too much, makes really a great difference.
I dunno your list but by my experience I faced 3 times something like:
-3 vultures
-3 punisher hq (the ones with +6" range and from the specialist detachment)
-various characters HQ and Elites
-60 guardsmen
-3 scout sentinel
-9 mortars
And maybe other stuff that I don't really remember...
Pretty standard list for people that like to roll a lot of dices.
But anyway I always won.
Once i seized initiative, but I was in the conditions to give proper value on that and not waste it (some stuff advanced). But at the same time if I was not able to seize the initiative (like 83% of the times) most of the stuff was at a safe range, the Swarmlord able to redeploy and prepared positions for everything in cover. So even if I was not counting on it, it was something that I considered and I got rewarded.
Another time it was a much harder fight where the opponent was going first, but I set the deployment in pretty much the same way. I won but not that much, and in that game the Broodlords did some heavy lifting.
And the last time the opponent did a huge mistake scouting 9" forward with the sentinels after knowing that for sure I was going to start, and he got horribly punished for that.
And by the way I've noticed that in case the opponent has no units with fly (not flyers, they just need to be able to fly), he has no chances to win against that list.
There are not many, but the ones without fly most of the times I don't even need to charge for being able to win the game but I can just win by moving models. At least in ETC and GW formats.
It could be the ETC is your success. I have only ever played ITC as that is what all the tourneys here use. FW is allowed. ANything with a Datacard essentially.
Sentinels are good for the brigade but yeah I don't move them up for DS denial anymore because you give the opponenet(Especailly a melee one) easy way to sling shot into your army without getting shot at. 3 punishers tanks and 3 vultures is a little overkill for hordes.
I like the indirect fire stuff like mortars, wyverns, basilisk, maybe take 2 punisher (tank or vulture). A vulture can move pretty far and i find it difficult to hide 20 man blobs of units. the indirect fire stuff picks off the venomthropes first.
Im just looking at the National/international meta results. You may be having success in ETC with Nids and no FW and thats good. But in ITC they are sub par.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Here are the Tyranid stats for ITC tourneys.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Looking at a GT list.
What is the logic behind taking Chamelonic Mutation on a Malanthrope? Its additional -1 doesn't spread to the rest of the army and it already has character protection. See below:
I will be running a few mini games against my brother's orcs today. I need to know the best way to kit out a Boordlord for maximum hack n slash. So far my plan is Hive Fleet Behemoth for WT Monstrous Hunger, and Chameleonic Mutation to help hi get into melee. Probably Catalyst for the psychic power. I figure I would bring this to the wisdom of the hive mind to get tips.
We are doing 2 one V one battles, first just stock builds, then with WT and relics. After that we will throw in some troops and sock it out.
Master Chief VF wrote: No, I mostly play ETC but the same list I am playing is working quite well also in ITC as I have quite solid kill points (easier unit to kill is 24 Hormagaunts hit on a -1) and a good board control.
Anyway gang busters (reaper) is always a +4 for the opponent.
But in ETC is working way better than in ITC because of the maelstrom missions, as this is a list that achieve very easily almost every maelstrom card that I draw, specially now that you can discard up to 6 before the game (in ETC you write on your army list the cards discarded).
I just never bought a Malanthrope because in many tournaments I cannot use Forge World and I am lazy to change list for FW permitted or not permitted tournaments, so I always use the venomthropes...
Is this the list you posted in the Army list threads?
Honestly, Ill take my Guard list with Vultures, a couple of Leman russ punishers and shred the hell out of that list. Once you lose your venomthropes its going to be rough. It bleeds secondaries.
Maybe you are having better luck due to ETC, but in ITC its just not going to happen. Too much soup. To many list you have to build against. Top table you will face a Knight+Soup list once. Chaos Soup/Daemons once, a horde list (likely orks or shoota star). GSC with their crazy OPDS and ambush shenanigans, granted i havn't played them since their Recent Nerf. Possibly Necrons now (which I also Play ) and are doing good solely because of the kngiht meta. Eldar list (flier spam, and or Ynarri but probably not now) and/or Drukhari.
Eldar and GSC got hit hard in the latest FAQ. Castallen soup also took a hit, but not much. You see more triple knight list now.
In a 5 round GT if I went 3-2 I would call that beating the odds.
Now its quite possible your a better player than I, but there is a reason you dont see more people playing Nids in the ITC circuit, and with the exception of the LVO 2018 when Flyrant Spam was still around before Rule of 3 Nids haven't really faired to well.
Now Tyranids Early 8th (say only implementing the rule of 3 to stop flier spam) but keeping our Points costed and stratagems as released would be a different story.
KurtAngle2 wrote: I am already doing this. Being sincere about the lack of competitiveness of current Tyranids is the only saving grace for our 2019 CA changes. If our voice isn't going to be heard because we think that we're fine (whilst we really aren't) then it's better to loudly express our concerning feelings, even resulting somewhat repetitive.
CA 2018 brought almost nothing to us Tyranids (only Swarmlord and Broodlord were truly a lifesaver for our lists) if not lower-end scale changes that needed to be addressed differently by different margins (i.e. Many more changes affecting the unused part of the codex and hefty point decreases that didn't happen);let's not repeat the same error this time
This. When our codex dropped we were top tier. Even if they had only made the rule of 3 change we would have still been top tier. Malanthropes are overpriced for a -1 shroud. Look at eldar for comparison. 120 pts should be fair. Nerf to lictor is unusable. Hiveguard are good anti tank, but we don't have any ANTI KNIGHT. We don't have a LoW. Swarmy is fair price now. Broodlords are better as are warriors, but still points changes alone arn't going to fix this. I don't think I have seen a single warrior played both before and after the update.
Everything is Genestealer, HT, swarmy, hivguard, termies, neuro for synapse,
Carnifexes are cheaper but suffer the same issue as Leman Russ, no invul save.
Tervigons while cool in theory really need to be 9 wounds for character protection.
Biovores went up, only way to really deal with knights via mortal wounds from far away.
We need a LoW that isn't Apoc scale, we are one of the only remaining armies without one.
But the main issue comes from the nerfing of stratagems and Hive fleet doctrines. Chagnes to fly, which are reverted back helped a bit. Deep strike changes was a big nerf to us since a lot of our assault armies get shot up now.
The last GT i went to had 130+ players, there were 2 pure nid players (granted a fair amount of GSC) but blah.
Wait, how are Hive Guard with Shockcannons not anti-Knight?
Because of several reasons.
FIrst you have to move and have line of sight, which means they can see you, and you are know target priority 1 of enemy.
2nd, STR 7 vs T8 to a 3+/4++
6 Hivegaurd (with kronos and assuming you didn't move and get to use reroll 1's) is doing 3.11 wounds (before mortals which I will get to in a second). If you take away Kronos its 2.67 which is more likely given the range of the weapon.
Lets say you shoot twice for 3 Cp. Now you have done 5.34 wounds to a 4++
Now half of those 5.34 wounds is going to be 4+ ( so you are looking at another 2.5ish wounds). If your luck and get 6s you get D3 wounds, so 2 on average.
Max potential wounds, if you get 6's on all your wound rolls is 5.34 + 15= 20 wounds. THis is under favorable circumstances with great luck on your side. More likely you are doing 7.34 wounds on average (with 3 cp a turn). Not even enough to degrade them.
Thats how hive guard shock cannon are not anti tank.
EDIT:
Kronos Hive Guard (x6) with Impaler Cannons, and shoot twice do 9.33 wounds on average to a knight of T8/ 3+/4++
Longer range, and you can hide, and you do more damage on average. And your not gonna get shot of the board T1 or T2. Impaler Hive Guard are the best we got, and that still not dropping them a tier.
I think you made a slight mistake in calculating shock guard mortal wounds. You took half of their dealt wounds for the mortal wound generation, but they're wounding on a 5+ on those shots. So effectively you have them causing mws on half of those 5+ wounds (a 6+), instead of on each 4+ wound roll.
I'm getting 18.6 total damage dealt for six double shooting stationary kronos guard (slightly over 15 if jormungandr). They still die horribly after, but they definitely take a chunk out of a knight.
Spoiler:
24*.78*.33*.5*2=6.2 dmg for the regular hits
24*.78*.33=6.2 additional dmg for the wound rolls of 4 and 5
24*.78*.17*2=6.2 additional dmg for the wound rolls of 6
18.6 in total
Let me know if I messed up somewhere, it's late here.
I went to the math hammer website. I think I did the Mortal wound input right. ON the options I did 1 mortal wound on 4+ and for 6+ i did D3.
Its giving me 14.22 wounds vs T8 3+/4++ with Kronos and Shoot twice. 13.33 without Kronos.
But like you said your gonna die next turn. If you deploy in the open and don't get first turn your risking getting shot before you can do anything. So its unlikely you will get the Kronos buff.
Besides, the knight will just pay the 1 CP to shoot at top shelf anyway. And you have the range issue. 24+6" move and you may have issues reaching some stuff.
My math gave me ~8 wounds per six HG unit, non-Kronos, prior to firing twice (which is not far off either of your calculations). That seems pretty dang good against a Knight, tbh. I'm wondering what units we're possibly comparing against (in any army) that fares better at range. Back when the Castellan had it's 3++, I was looking at 3 units of Hive Guard having tunneling up (I play Jorm) and having a reasonable chance of one-shotting it.
That seemed quite good, considering that 8 Lascannons at BS 3+ (no rerolls) would only manage to do 6.2 wounds vs. T8 3+4++
His list was 140 plague bearers, 3 nurglings, some nurgle characters, a slaanesh character and a supreme command thousand sons with Ahriman, 2 DPs, terminator sorcerer and something else.
His list was 140 plague bearers, 3 nurglings, some nurgle characters, a slaanesh character and a supreme command thousand sons with Ahriman, 2 DPs, terminator sorcerer and something else.
ITC and ETC are very different , most ITC lists cant be played in ETC, same for some ETC lists, they play with different rules, ITC has custom missions rely a lot on secondaries (most of them are kill something) where ETC heavily rely on obj control (CA2018), lists like Tyr are great about board control and if you play them properly in ETC, you can win. In ITC tyr usually wont perfom so good cause secondaries rely on kill something, and tyr aren't very resilient, you can score points on obj but if your army is almost annillathed you lose in ITC. No reason to compare two games formats so deeply different, as well pointless compare ETC/ITC lists, imho.
nids are crap in ITC currently. They do well in Warzone: Atlanta missions and ETC currently. Mabey adepticon's packet as well. Not sure about NOVA, haven't played those in a while.
Ok boyz, new discussion, how fare we in the game of apocalypse? I haven't gotten to look over all the new datasheets, but mayhaps our big bugs are a bit better with the new rule set.
Eihnlazer wrote: Ok boyz, new discussion, how fare we in the game of apocalypse? I haven't gotten to look over all the new datasheets, but mayhaps our big bugs are a bit better with the new rule set.
I don't want to get the regular 40k discussions all confused with the apoc stuff since its all so different. Also unless they make a Apoc section of the forum this should all be in specialist games.
Another thing: what is your ideas on Walking tyrants, other then the Swarmlord? I like the build with devrourers and claws so it can be build for both shooting and still is alsmost effective in CC as a dedicated CC tyrant.
Singleton Mosby wrote: Another thing: what is your ideas on Walking tyrants, other then the Swarmlord? I like the build with devrourers and claws so it can be build for both shooting and still is alsmost effective in CC as a dedicated CC tyrant.
But still why not give the same build wings? It’s just better
Karang029 wrote: The only argument I can see is if you play like a Jormungandr heavy monster list and dont wanna lose the bonus maybe? Maybe?(This is a stretch here)
To be honest I would bring jormungandr for the deep strike, not anymore for the cover on the monsters.
Much better Leviathan for the survivability, specially counting that on opponent's T1 you might be in cover anyway due to the 2cp stratagem.
At least spamming monsters I would go for the Leviathan and take the wings on the Tyrants.
Singleton Mosby wrote: Another thing: what is your ideas on Walking tyrants, other then the Swarmlord? I like the build with devrourers and claws so it can be build for both shooting and still is alsmost effective in CC as a dedicated CC tyrant.
But still why not give the same build wings? It’s just better
Well, because the wings cost a lot of points. And I am not going to use the deepstrike ability because much of my army is already deepstriking and the tyrant would bring me over the limit. Running him as Kraken for the -1 on shooting.
Option for DSing which is good at times
Gives you fast synapse and fast moving FLY unit which both are very good
Gets you in range to use powers if need be
Lets you sniper character out if dakka/psychic
I honestly dont see any reason NOT to take wings outside of Apoc.
Option for DSing which is good at times
Gives you fast synapse and fast moving FLY unit which both are very good
Gets you in range to use powers if need be
Lets you sniper character out if dakka/psychic
I honestly dont see any reason NOT to take wings outside of Apoc.
The value of the wings is quite clear. But since the flyrant is always such a massive priority-target for your opponent the wings are a serious premium (50% of a carnifex). A walking tryant is not quick but not slow either. I think he can be very usefull as well but of course didn't try it out yet.
Option for DSing which is good at times
Gives you fast synapse and fast moving FLY unit which both are very good
Gets you in range to use powers if need be
Lets you sniper character out if dakka/psychic
I honestly dont see any reason NOT to take wings outside of Apoc.
The value of the wings is quite clear. But since the flyrant is always such a massive priority-target for your opponent the wings are a serious premium (50% of a carnifex). A walking tryant is not quick but not slow either. I think he can be very usefull as well but of course didn't try it out yet.
Played my first two game with Nids this week. The Hive Tyrant on foot performed quite alright. He is obviously not a powerhouse due to only having 4 attacks. But he had some staying power mainly due to not being the main focus of my opponent. In each game he was supporting (Onslaught, Catalyst) in turn 1 and doing damage (dakka, smite, charge) turn 2 lasting multiple turns. I will probably keep him in the list and pair him with a flyrant.
The use of genestealers puzzles me a bit. I don't want to throw them across the board for a first turn to kill some screen only to be whiped out. Holding them back makes them a prime target and being slaughtered. They are expensive and most of my list is composed of monsters so the anti-infantry firepower has few better targets. Do they have a use in a Nidzilla list at all?
Lord Blackscale wrote:What are our best weapons against Death Guard, notably plague marines and characters?
Generally speaking, you want to look at multi-damage guns (Impaler Cannon, Venom Cannon) or melee weapons (most of the "Monstrous" melee weapons) with a moderate to high rate of fire/volume of attacks to make it harder for them to save models with Disgusting Resilience. For small arms fire, Deathspitters are reasonably good since they have high rate of fire and sufficient strength to counteract the toughness advantage of most Death Guard infantry while also having some AP (Devourers loose out here - better reserved for Pox Walkers).
Second option would be mortal wound spam, via smite and weapon-created Spore Mines (Biovores, Sporocyst, Harpy). The Death Guard still get to take their Disgusting Resilience against such wounds, but bypassing their armor/invul increases the likelihood of the damage sticking. Against a character you could also pop Implant Attack after they make a Disgusting Resilience check for added mortal wounds.
Option for DSing which is good at times
Gives you fast synapse and fast moving FLY unit which both are very good
Gets you in range to use powers if need be
Lets you sniper character out if dakka/psychic
I honestly dont see any reason NOT to take wings outside of Apoc.
The value of the wings is quite clear. But since the flyrant is always such a massive priority-target for your opponent the wings are a serious premium (50% of a carnifex). A walking tryant is not quick but not slow either. I think he can be very usefull as well but of course didn't try it out yet.
Played my first two game with Nids this week. The Hive Tyrant on foot performed quite alright. He is obviously not a powerhouse due to only having 4 attacks. But he had some staying power mainly due to not being the main focus of my opponent. In each game he was supporting (Onslaught, Catalyst) in turn 1 and doing damage (dakka, smite, charge) turn 2 lasting multiple turns. I will probably keep him in the list and pair him with a flyrant.
The use of genestealers puzzles me a bit. I don't want to throw them across the board for a first turn to kill some screen only to be whiped out. Holding them back makes them a prime target and being slaughtered. They are expensive and most of my list is composed of monsters so the anti-infantry firepower has few better targets. Do they have a use in a Nidzilla list at all?
The trick is to consolidate into another unit. Or if there isn't anything nearby, only put 1 model actually within attack range. Fight with the one guy on your turn. Then tripoint lock a model in your consolidation phase. Then the following turn in your opponent fight phase activate the entire unit and wipe that unit. Now when its your turn it can move and charge to full effect.
Note: its sometime possible to get T1 charge. Pile or consolidate into multiple units (often with the use of Overrun) and or Fight again stratagem.
Just some talk on the current state of the game, and Tyranids place in it: I'm finding Dakkafexes outperform basically every other unit in all my matches. So cost effective for the speed, durability, and volume of dice, they aren't trivial to remove nor to ignore, and can force a ton of saves on anything smaller than a Rhino. Everyone knows Genestealers and Termagants are good, but I feel like Dakkafex are the hidden strength of the dex.
Also, 30 man Termagant units with 10 or 15 devourers are really nice board control that actually puts out wounds, and for bout 150 pts or so isn't at all points inefficient - that's the same cost as a 30 man Cultist squad except with built in Fearless mechanic and way better chapter tactics (most likely Kraken), and the 30 to 50 shots actually gives them an impact. And they have to clear out the entire squad nearly before they actually start impacting the dice they put out, for the most part.
I know it's going to sound like blasphemy, but I've been finding Hive Guard to be less and less effective. They are highly terrain dependant, which is sometimes a problem if you get the wrong table edge (or just the wrong table in some events - yes, I know they should be using more terrain, but the fact is plenty of places just don't), and also extremely match up dependant. Vs Knights for example they basically take an entire game of chewing up CP to down a single Knight which is basically not even worth doing, and they just get evaporated immediately vs anything with highly mobile shooting that can get an angle on them (Aeldari / Necron / Guard flyers for example) because even with the newer bases they still have a significant footprint. Let alone the amount of units that do "no-LoS" even better and don't even need LoS to delete them, like Broadsides. And in the mirror, you have no way of guaranteeing you shoot first, or if they have Flyrants for whatever reason (which aren't a top tier unit anymore but also aren't uncommon to see in some form) they can just chew em out. I take more than enough Gants to screen them out from deepstrikers, but blocking deepstriker threats just isn't enough to protect them anymore I think. They are decent when they are good, buy in the current state of the game they feel a little too coinflippy.
I think I'm going to swap to GSC bikes for the role. Fire and forget, instant results, and not terrible for other roles than their own.
This is also probably another unpopular opinion, but I also think Rupture Cannon Tyrannofex isn't too bad at all now (after the point reduction and with Castellan AP4 being less prevalent), especially in the right style of list, e.g. if you are forcing them to make a decision between putting their AT on to your TFexes or Dakkafexes that are in their face, and with a Malanthrope next to them they are quite tough, and are getting instant results on hostile Armor of any size, just save a CP re-roll for the D6 damage roll imo. Yeah, they are worse vs Elite units, and Primaris are about to get popular, but they still aren't bad here and I never have any trouble gunning down Elite infantry with weight of dice, especially since those units almost always want to come to you (where you can just light em up).
Automatically Appended Next Post: And of course I'll probably be using OOE too for back up AT too
Dakkafexxes have been in use for quite a while in the meta.
HIve Guard were good until knights came out.
Nids main issue is we don't have a T8 model and/or IK equivalent. We dont have any units that can take down a knight effectively, let alone 1 shot a knight like most armies can.
Looking at it objectively from an ITC perspective, we have to play the board and just hoard it up.
Bring tools to kill hoards, and enough bodies to keep your enemy penned in to one part of the table.
So bring lots of gaunts, of both types, nuerothropes and malanthropes for synapse and staying power, dakkafex's are fine since they are quite cost effective. Leviathan is looking a lot more attractive now since its a reliable durability increase.
Im still liking sporocysts since they are cheap roadblocks that cant be ignored. Biovores have a place as well, but you cant spam them now.
I like pyrovores because they are pretty cost effective, but if you don't have them as kraken or jorm they are too slow to be of any use.
They should be fine as long as you let your nuro's heal with their smite. With leviathan trait its pretty difficult for a vindicare to oneshot a nuero and you can easily keep them out of LOS if need be.
Malanthropes will be in for a rough spot turn 3 but with their massive wound pool should last till then at least, and you should have been able to get some gaunts up to the snipers by then.
Well, Im glad that a more horde style army could be more usable, I love sporocysts so what exactly do they bring though? How are they useful? Im not really big on standard dakka type armies but anything thats unique I find interesting
If we’re seeing a metagame mobilisation of 2W infantry and demobilisation of T8, isn’t an acid spray t-fex in a good place?
Rupturefex hanging back and popping hard targets, acidfex daring veteran thunder hammer intercessors to try and take the midfield and laughing at flame Aggressors, dakkafexes with acid maws sorting out lighter infantry, devil/termagant hybrid units screening, and maaaybe a Tervigon keeping them alive and also adding to T8 saturation?
All wrapped up with malanthrope -1 auras, plus neurothropes providing psychic & DTW support, and also forcing snipers to choose between the squishy-but-regenerating psyker that can CRR a 3++ to deny the kill, or the big -1 aura generator?
You basically described how I'm playing Nids at the moment.
However you can't really Malanthrope umbrella the Rupture Cannon Fexes and the Acid Spray Fexes at the same time. And you want a little redundancy for both strats I think so you probably want to choose one or the other.
My list I'm taking next week is running 2 battalions.
Two Neurothropes, a Malanthrope, and Old One Eye (excellent unit, even better when running Acid Maw Fexes).
3x Acid Maw Dakkafex, 2x Rupture Cannon TFex.
Some max size squads of Termagants hiding about 10 devourers in them. A couple more barebones for holding objectives.
The rest of my points I've got in a squad of Stealers and a squad of Horms, for tying things up in cc, and dealing with enemy assault units. I think 1 unit of Stealers is mandatory, the Horms are luxury.
The TFexes and Malanthrope are Jorm for 2+ sv / -1 to hit. Also cover ignoring. The Termagants are there too cause 5+ sv makes them Fearless guardsmen with better shooting. Everything else is Kraken for speed. We'll see how it goes but I have high hopes.
I tried the Tervigon recently (stomped down on a competitive AdMech list). You need the investment in Gants to make him work (which is fine) and then he feels about as good as taking a third squad of 30 Gants. He regenned close to his points worth, kept fodder shield up for their devourers, and smited or catalysted a few turns, as well as gave out re-rolls to the gant. He was cool, and basically unkillable with Kraken Relic, Malanthrope, and then surrounded by Gants, and was just generally a nuisance that doesn't quit. Some lists will be able to clear out that many Gants with ease however. Still, I think the week after I may try dropping a Neurothrope and Hormagants for a Tervi and swapping the Rupture Cannons for Acid Spray which is exactly 1999pts for me, because I agree they are solid right now especially with bunch of MC in the list, and I'm not sure that investing in either Hive Guard or Rupture Cannons is even necessary.
Is it just me, or do Gravis units completely outclass Warriors now? I get it, it's a bit of apples to oranges, but fundamentally I think it's another area where we just get smoked (hell, I know Warriors got smoked by other units within the codex, but at least it was at specific roles, not in a generalist sense!)
lindsay40k wrote:If we’re seeing a metagame mobilisation of 2W infantry and demobilisation of T8, isn’t an acid spray t-fex in a good place?
Maybe? My initial thought is that anything that can suppress Knights will probably also suppress other T8 models too. I suppose in theory the Tyrannofex could hide in reserves via a Tyrannocyte and act as a beta strike against a drop pod alpha strike (presumably what would suppress T8) but that is a lot of points to have off table and it might not have a good landing zone if they bring a few infiltrators along.
I am admittedly a little down on 'nidzilla at the moment. My last outing with a monster-heavy list saw it getting tabled by a comparatively tame custodes and battle sister list (basically just troops and some foot characters, 1 biker captain and 4 jetbikes).
Nidzilla isn't like Knights. You gotta accept that a lot of lists will be able to kill any one or even two of your monsters pretty quickly. What you have to do is make that as hard as possible for them (Malanthrope / Spore Cysts, Kraken Relic, The Horror,Jorm / Prepared Positions, Catalyst on the thing they need dead the most, etc) to really spread that fire thin, and you also have to make it so that the rest of your army feels pretty happy once all the AT has been shot off. Tyrannofex aren't priced too badly from a defensive standpoint, if they die they die, just gotta be adaptable.
Nids are gonna see an upswing as marines get more popular. We have never had a real issue with dealing with marines.
However, I will note, that some marine lists will utterly stomp nid hoard now. They can easily bring enough attacks to beat down 140 model lists now with their updated chapter attacks (ultramarines, black Templar, and white scars)
We still cant handle knight lists, decent tau lists, ork hoards, and genestealer cult lists (that are played properly).
It's depressing because we got one of the best written codex's in years, got immediately nerfed because of a few spam lists, and then watched as every new codex after ours powercrept us out of real revelancy.
You can have some truly amazing and fun games with nids, so don't sell them off, but we just wont be winning any major tournaments in the current meta.
You can still go to a tourney and place in the top 20 (in non-ITC tournies), but we are just outclassed greatly. Most armies outshoot us, some armies outfight us in melee, and most armies are more durable than us.
If you build a list that will last past turn 4/5 (gaunt spam) you wont be able to even put a dent in some other lists. If you go for a nidzilla list and your opponent doesn't roll a bunch of 1's you get tabled. Same for genestealer spam.
Our superheavies suck ass, and only a few of our fun tricks are actually effective. We suffer from necron levels of short ranged firepower only with less durability (granted we are a lot better in melee and have psychic powers).
Eihnlazer wrote: It's depressing because we got one of the best written codex's in years, got immediately nerfed because of a few spam lists, and then watched as every new codex after ours powercrept us out of real revelancy.
You can have some truly amazing and fun games with nids, so don't sell them off, but we just wont be winning any major tournaments in the current meta.
You can still go to a tourney and place in the top 20 (in non-ITC tournies), but we are just outclassed greatly. Most armies outshoot us, some armies outfight us in melee, and most armies are more durable than us.
If you build a list that will last past turn 4/5 (gaunt spam) you wont be able to even put a dent in some other lists. If you go for a nidzilla list and your opponent doesn't roll a bunch of 1's you get tabled. Same for genestealer spam.
Our superheavies suck ass, and only a few of our fun tricks are actually effective. We suffer from necron levels of short ranged firepower only with less durability (granted we are a lot better in melee and have psychic powers).
Necrons are sadly better than us at the moment, even if it's a singular list.
Tyranids do every single phase of the game no better than anybody at the moment, with no real way to have an in-game adaptability if something doesn't go our way.
Nitro Zeus wrote: Nidzilla isn't like Knights. You gotta accept that a lot of lists will be able to kill any one or even two of your monsters pretty quickly. What you have to do is make that as hard as possible for them (Malanthrope / Spore Cysts, Kraken Relic, The Horror,Jorm / Prepared Positions, Catalyst on the thing they need dead the most, etc) to really spread that fire thin, and you also have to make it so that the rest of your army feels pretty happy once all the AT has been shot off.
I agree and I know. The main disappointment of that particular game was that there wasn't really any anti-tank on the other side of the table. Everything died to mass bolter fire and assault.
I'll probably give the list another go, since my dice were unusually cold and my opponent's were on fire.
Third_Age_of_Baggz wrote: I'v been away from the game so long I got back into 8th with my Bugs. So are 10-12 Carnifex heavy lists even worth taking anymore?
The Carnifex itself still feels pretty solid, especially compared to other models in its size class (classic Dreadnaughts, Deff Dreads, Wraithlords). How viable masses of them will be will depend on how dominate Knights are in your local meta and how many you see in a given list. Knights are exceptionally good at dealing with multi-wound models, so the general counter is to skew towards infantry to deny them good targets. If they only have one you could throw Old One Eye at it and hopefully tear it up before it can do too much damage, but against 2 with infantry support or a full Knight list you might run into trouble.
Also worth noting, the commonly accepted "rule of 3"* means that one can field at most 9 of the build-your-own Carnifexes, with any over that needing to be some mix of Thornbacks, Screamerkillers, or Stonecrushers.
*Technically not a rule proper but a recommendation for tournaments/events. Commonly treated as a rule proper regardless, since it reduces spam to an extent.
Eihnlazer wrote: It's depressing because we got one of the best written codex's in years, got immediately nerfed because of a few spam lists, and then watched as every new codex after ours powercrept us out of real revelancy.
You can have some truly amazing and fun games with nids, so don't sell them off, but we just wont be winning any major tournaments in the current meta.
You can still go to a tourney and place in the top 20 (in non-ITC tournies), but we are just outclassed greatly. Most armies outshoot us, some armies outfight us in melee, and most armies are more durable than us.
If you build a list that will last past turn 4/5 (gaunt spam) you wont be able to even put a dent in some other lists. If you go for a nidzilla list and your opponent doesn't roll a bunch of 1's you get tabled. Same for genestealer spam.
Our superheavies suck ass, and only a few of our fun tricks are actually effective. We suffer from necron levels of short ranged firepower only with less durability (granted we are a lot better in melee and have psychic powers).
This is a bit too negative and I think your mentality may be holding you back further than your army. Yeah, Nids aren't highest tier, but they do way better than top 20 at an ITC event. PURE GREY KNIGHTS (no soup) got second place at one over the weekend, you don't really think we're in a worse place than that do you? And now you guys are saying Necrons are better? Lol it wasn't long ago at all that people Necrons at the flat bottom of the ladder, it took a few good players displaying what the army is capable of to change the broader understanding of them.
Pure Tyranids are in the best place we've been in since over a year ago, with the nerf of Castellan, and now a new meta competitor that I think we all agree we are well positioned against that is going to be EVERYWHERE and will only grow in popularity as the rest of the library of books it's getting are released. I think Tyranids are going to need a couple of things, including rethinking the "rules" how we play the army, and also tournament players willing to actually play the army. Because GSCare top tier, and are considered a more fun dex, and are Nids in all but name, so there is little interest competitively in playing bugs - you don't even need to play Tyranids to compete with Tyranids at the moment. I can't help but think that if Necrons had a top tier sister dex for like C'Tan or something that had a bunch of flavorful rules, that the perception of them would still be the same as it was a month or so ago, even though it's all still there.
Eihnlazer wrote: It's depressing because we got one of the best written codex's in years, got immediately nerfed because of a few spam lists, and then watched as every new codex after ours powercrept us out of real revelancy.
You can have some truly amazing and fun games with nids, so don't sell them off, but we just wont be winning any major tournaments in the current meta.
You can still go to a tourney and place in the top 20 (in non-ITC tournies), but we are just outclassed greatly. Most armies outshoot us, some armies outfight us in melee, and most armies are more durable than us.
If you build a list that will last past turn 4/5 (gaunt spam) you wont be able to even put a dent in some other lists. If you go for a nidzilla list and your opponent doesn't roll a bunch of 1's you get tabled. Same for genestealer spam.
Our superheavies suck ass, and only a few of our fun tricks are actually effective. We suffer from necron levels of short ranged firepower only with less durability (granted we are a lot better in melee and have psychic powers).
This is a bit too negative and I think your mentality may be holding you back further than your army. Yeah, Nids aren't highest tier, but they do way better than top 20 at an ITC event. PURE GREY KNIGHTS (no soup) got second place at one over the weekend, you don't really think we're in a worse place than that do you? And now you guys are saying Necrons are better? Lol it wasn't long ago at all that people Necrons at the flat bottom of the ladder, it took a few good players displaying what the army is capable of to change the broader understanding of them.
Pure Tyranids are in the best place we've been in since over a year ago, with the nerf of Castellan, and now a new meta competitor that I think we all agree we are well positioned against that is going to be EVERYWHERE and will only grow in popularity as the rest of the library of books it's getting are released. I think Tyranids are going to need a couple of things, including rethinking the "rules" how we play the army, and also tournament players willing to actually play the army. Because GSCare top tier, and are considered a more fun dex, and are Nids in all but name, so there is little interest competitively in playing bugs - you don't even need to play Tyranids to compete with Tyranids at the moment. I can't help but think that if Necrons had a top tier sister dex for like C'Tan or something that had a bunch of flavorful rules, that the perception of them would still be the same as it was a month or so ago, even though it's all still there.
This. A hundred times. I had my fun with nids in the start of 8ed and than shelved them for orks (precodex). I see this "the sky is falling" mentality everywhere in other 3d by old players that compare the good old days with now and just can't get out of their head.
Nids are NOT top tier, but at the last 3 ITC tournaments I have been, I always met a nids player fighting for the podium. All of those players played their own flavoured list over and over and over. They are way better than the majority of the knight/custodes/eldar players that take advantage of their overpowered codex . Yes, they are not winning every tournaments consistently and are in the top tier, but man, they get so much respect from everyone when they comes out like the oddballs they are.
Take a list you like, improve it and keep on playing it untill YOU make 0 mistakes and than keep on doing that. Itc helps better players to get better, as long they realize how much the match depends on them , rather than dice rolls.
This. A hundred times. I had my fun with nids in the start of 8ed and than shelved them for orks (precodex). I see this "the sky is falling" mentality everywhere in other 3d by old players that compare the good old days with now and just can't get out of their head.
Nids are NOT top tier, but at the last 3 ITC tournaments I have been, I always met a nids player fighting for the podium. All of those players played their own flavoured list over and over and over. They are way better than the majority of the knight/custodes/eldar players that take advantage of their overpowered codex . Yes, they are not winning every tournaments consistently and are in the top tier, but man, they get so much respect from everyone when they comes out like the oddballs they are.
Take a list you like, improve it and keep on playing it untill YOU make 0 mistakes and than keep on doing that. Itc helps better players to get better, as long they realize how much the match depends on them , rather than dice rolls.
I'm not too OLD and I'm not saying I have a "Sky is falling" mentality, I'm just pointing out that I've thoroughly ready this thread and you're right, seems like there are some Negative Nancys out there. I appreciate the words of advice from the previous replies to my post about the Carnifex. I still plan on playing my bugs whole heartily even though I have quite a few Carnifex models. Back in the day, they where the "ONLY" big model out there and it was a monster for sure. Now these days, not so much. For me personally, I don't think flying Hive Tyrants are that effective, nor fluffy. But hey, that's my take. I'm sure they are a crutch for most competitive armies out there. I've always been more of a "Ground Pounder" when it comes to such units.
Well I did say nids can give you some of the best games. They are definitely an army you play because of the fun factor.
I've just been hit with too much disappointment in my tournament play with them.
When you put your heart and soul into making a unique list, get everything painted in the proper scheme, and fly halfway across the country to play at the biggest tournament in the world and get utterly shat on because other armies are just plain stronger or because you make the tiniest of mistakes (in 2 of my games), you start to get a bit depressed about it.
Eihnlazer wrote: Well I did say nids can give you some of the best games. They are definitely an army you play because of the fun factor.
I've just been hit with too much disappointment in my tournament play with them.
When you put your heart and soul into making a unique list, get everything painted in the proper scheme, and fly halfway across the country to play at the biggest tournament in the world and get utterly shat on because other armies are just plain stronger or because you make the tiniest of mistakes (in 2 of my games), you start to get a bit depressed about it.
Eihnlazer wrote: Well I did say nids can give you some of the best games. They are definitely an army you play because of the fun factor.
I've just been hit with too much disappointment in my tournament play with them.
When you put your heart and soul into making a unique list, get everything painted in the proper scheme, and fly halfway across the country to play at the biggest tournament in the world and get utterly shat on because other armies are just plain stronger or because you make the tiniest of mistakes (in 2 of my games), you start to get a bit depressed about it.
At the level of play you are describing the tiniest mistakes are where you win or loose. Tyranids wile not tip top tyre Id say is in a decent high middle ground. The last 3 tourniments Ive played in I can point out the turning points are every time I make or my opp makes a mistake. Out of all three touniy's I have only played one army that I had no answer for and am fairly certain barring the opp playing stupidly I could not have won. (It was a Yanarri flyer/bikes list). Even then now that I have experienced it myself I could do better vs it...
This. A hundred times. I had my fun with nids in the start of 8ed and than shelved them for orks (precodex). I see this "the sky is falling" mentality everywhere in other 3d by old players that compare the good old days with now and just can't get out of their head.
Nids are NOT top tier, but at the last 3 ITC tournaments I have been, I always met a nids player fighting for the podium. All of those players played their own flavoured list over and over and over. They are way better than the majority of the knight/custodes/eldar players that take advantage of their overpowered codex . Yes, they are not winning every tournaments consistently and are in the top tier, but man, they get so much respect from everyone when they comes out like the oddballs they are.
Take a list you like, improve it and keep on playing it untill YOU make 0 mistakes and than keep on doing that. Itc helps better players to get better, as long they realize how much the match depends on them , rather than dice rolls.
No offense meant, just that you are OG, like me I'm sure you'll find a list you can make work, but it will be really unforgiving atm.
Let's hope for a new codex asap
I'm not too OLD and I'm not saying I have a "Sky is falling" mentality, I'm just pointing out that I've thoroughly ready this thread and you're right, seems like there are some Negative Nancys out there. I appreciate the words of advice from the previous replies to my post about the Carnifex. I still plan on playing my bugs whole heartily even though I have quite a few Carnifex models. Back in the day, they where the "ONLY" big model out there and it was a monster for sure. Now these days, not so much. For me personally, I don't think flying Hive Tyrants are that effective, nor fluffy. But hey, that's my take. I'm sure they are a crutch for most competitive armies out there. I've always been more of a "Ground Pounder" when it comes to such units.
I'll make them Carnifex work somehow...
Eihnlazer wrote:Well I did say nids can give you some of the best games. They are definitely an army you play because of the fun factor.
I've just been hit with too much disappointment in my tournament play with them.
When you put your heart and soul into making a unique list, get everything painted in the proper scheme, and fly halfway across the country to play at the biggest tournament in the world and get utterly shat on because other armies are just plain stronger or because you make the tiniest of mistakes (in 2 of my games), you start to get a bit depressed about it.
I got it that's why I stopped . But still is possible to kick some ass. Hard work pays out.
Look at Almost Pro Gamings YouTube videos. he does monthly recaps of the top 10 armies. Nids haven't been in it in a while.
If they reversed the rulings on some of our stragems i think it could help.
The lictor DS should allow Genestealers to use it.
Changing the Metabolic overdrive to allow charge with Onslaught power to help get things like OOE and Swarmy in T1 charges.
Spore Mine stratagem nerf.
If we could stack -1 to hit ( a bit cheesy) but Eldar have it. So malanthrope/venomthrope/sporocist.
Lack of invul saves, especially with the high amount of AP.
Lack of T8 monsters. I mean come on.
Lack of High Strength long range fire power to deal with Primarchs/knight equivalents.
Point drops.
What if Biovores were like IG mortar teams instead of Anti tank?
Warriors should be Primaris equivelent.
Tervigons need to be T9 so they don't get popped.
Have Hive fleet trait with reduced degrading.
Our core troop is supposed to be GEQ but is worse in every way. Both cost 4 points.
Our save is lower, the weapon (fleshborer) has shorter range and fewer shots. And we don't get orders.
Devilgant cost 2 guardsmen for 3 shots, but still not as good as a Guardsmen with FRFSRF.
All this bitching and moaning being said. I hope, somewhat, that with the new SM codex, and the shift towards a SM meta given the mono faction encouragement, we may see an uptick. Generally Nids are good against SM, but not sure how we will fair with these.
Dynas wrote: Nids are not top tier, arguable mid tier.
Literally not a single person said that they were top tier.
Dynas wrote: Look at Almost Pro Gamings YouTube videos. he does monthly recaps of the top 10 armies. Nids haven't been in it in a while.
.... but why? this doesn't prove anything as it isn't a counter a single thing that has been said. The entire point being made was that placings aren't representative of power here. And even if they were, again, nobody said Nids were top tier.
Technically we have four T8 monsters (Tervigon, Tyrannofex, Exocrine, Haruspex), just most of them are shackled with a 4+ to hit which limits how much damage they can do compared to a Carnifex (3+ to hit in melee on the charge/with Old One Eye or 3+ to hit at range with advanced senses).
In regards to Biovores acting like mortar teams, I actually really like how the spore mine-based weapons play. They are incredibly unique, if perhaps not the most dangerous.
I love biovores, but the points hike was too much.
50 points for a model that on average either does 2 mortal wounds or slows someones movement is too much (especially compared to a lot of the newer stuff.
They have higher value versus something like custodes or knights, but almost no value againgst a lot of other armies.
They should be at most 40points apiece considering how useless they are againgst half the armies in the game.
Quick game tonight. Thinking about bringing this list for fun. Can you think of any obscure rules I might miss or forget about because I havent played in about 6 months? What strategems should I keep in mind? Any synergies or specific gear/setup youd suggest?
Technically we have four T8 monsters (Tervigon, Tyrannofex, Exocrine, Haruspex), just most of them are shackled with a 4+ to hit which limits how much damage they can do compared to a Carnifex (3+ to hit in melee on the charge/with Old One Eye or 3+ to hit at range with advanced senses).
In regards to Biovores acting like mortar teams, I actually really like how the spore mine-based weapons play. They are incredibly unique, if perhaps not the most dangerous.
Stationary Exocrine gets 12 x 36” S7 AP-3 D2 shots at BS 3+
With an influx of Primaris units and improvements, and Obliterators going up to 4W, that’s pretty solid to me
If there’s anything we really need, gun-wise, it’s a D3 attack that can efficiently deal with Gravis. Carnifexes can efficiently pop them in melee, but you want to be careful when charging Aggressors and make sure they all die and don’t get to punch back with their bucket of power fist attacks
Dynas wrote: Nids are not top tier, arguable mid tier.
Literally not a single person said that they were top tier.
Dynas wrote: Look at Almost Pro Gamings YouTube videos. he does monthly recaps of the top 10 armies. Nids haven't been in it in a while.
.... but why? this doesn't prove anything as it isn't a counter a single thing that has been said. The entire point being made was that placings aren't representative of power here. And even if they were, again, nobody said Nids were top tier.
Take a re-read through this page.
IMO placings are representative of power. That and the number of list being taken to major GTs. In competitive Meta people shift to whats strong and what rises to the top. Nids aren't even mid tier at this point IMO. I wish I was wrong, as I love playing them.
Badablack wrote: Nah because it’s not a Twin Devourer. Each weapon slot is specifically taken by two Devourers, so it becomes four in total with six shots each.
If there’s anything we really need, gun-wise, it’s a D3 attack that can efficiently deal with Gravis. Carnifexes can efficiently pop them in melee, but you want to be careful when charging Aggressors and make sure they all die and don’t get to punch back with their bucket of power fist attacks
Maybe Heavy Venom Cannons? Each is wounding on a 3+ with -1 AP and 3 damage and are fairly accessible (Hive Tyrant, Carnifex, and 2x on the Harpy). I guess the Exocrine would be fine as well with Pathogenic Slime in effect.
It is my opinion that marines are better eaten than shooted. Since they will have to decide between goodness and soup, they are not going to have screens, and our monsters melee profiles really like those targets. From Cfex, to trygons to Toxicrens. Even the haruspex can do decent stuff, at least it is T8, which new marines have problem with.
Personally I've starting looking at Exocrines again. The Castellans that negated them previously have pretty much dropped out of the meta, and there is a big upswing in the sort of multi-wound infantry they excel at killing with the marine codex.
Brought one in a mirror match the other day, where I used Pathogenic Slime on it to kill 6 hive guard in a single volley. Reminded me why I used to like them so much
How the hell does one of the most immobile units in the army get an angle to shoot full volley at one of the most hidey unit on the table that doesn't need LoS? Was there just no terrain, or did he mess up badly? Or was it shock cannons or something
Anyway, did one feel like enough? Or would you prefer to have more?
There was LoS blocking terrain, but not if he wanted a first turn volley into something other than termagants. So he opted not to take it, and paid for it. I'd also put it down to a bit of inexperience. Good player, but he was fairly new to the faction, and I don't think had played with them much beyond the standard swarmlord + genestealers + hive guard list.
I didn't end up winning the game though. Made a critical mistake with genestealer cult deployment, where I dropped my magus in deny range of a flyrant hiding in plain sight on top of a building, who stopped a crucial cast of Might From Beyond.
I would certainly like to try playing with one or two more exocrines. They are indeed quite immobile, but I find it rare that they can find nothing worth shooting. I like their consistency much more than the rather more swingy tyrannofex.
I would certainly like to try playing with one or two more exocrines. They are indeed quite immobile, but I find it rare that they can find nothing worth shooting.
I like their consistency much more than the rather more swingy tyrannofex.
I don't know what you mean really. Isn't the advantage of the Tyrannofex that is more consistent, with 48" range instead of 36" (having to move either of these units is a massive detriment), and that with S10 + high AP it can punch damage through anything, even if Exocrine handles TEQ better? The Exocrine kinda falls flat against Knights, and with the release of a brand new Knight dex that is possibly even stronger than the Imperial one... I'm not convinced its the right time for Exocrine. But can you explain what you mean by the Tyrannofex being swingy where the Exocrine is not?
I would certainly like to try playing with one or two more exocrines. They are indeed quite immobile, but I find it rare that they can find nothing worth shooting.
I like their consistency much more than the rather more swingy tyrannofex.
I don't know what you mean really. Isn't the advantage of the Tyrannofex that is more consistent, with 48" range instead of 36" (having to move either of these units is a massive detriment), and that with S10 + high AP it can punch damage through anything, even if Exocrine handles TEQ better? The Exocrine kinda falls flat against Knights, and with the release of a brand new Knight dex that is possibly even stronger than the Imperial one... I'm not convinced its the right time for Exocrine. But can you explain what you mean by the Tyrannofex being swingy where the Exocrine is not?
More shots, hits more accurately, flat damage 2 (or 3 with pathogenic slime).
They're for firing at different targets; I wouldn't point an exocrine at a knight if there was anything better to aim it at. Sorry if I was unclear on that.
What I was trying to say is that within its role of killing multiwound infantry and light vehicles, an exocrine is very reliable.
Within its role of killing tough vehicles (or other things with acid spray), I find a tyrannofex is much more variable in its effectiveness. I'm not a fan of random damage and hitting on a 4+.
This is more a response to the new marine codex. I believe that's catching on much more than the new knights in my local area at least.
I'm just going to try it for a while, maybe take them to a few small events, and just see how it goes.
No, my bad, I just didn't understand what you meant, it makes perfect sense now.
I sort of see what you are saying. But while SM will probably be more popular than Chaos Knights, I think we need help more vs the Knights than the Marines.
Though Aggressors are bloody scary I'll say that much. Perfect counter to an army that is forced to come to them, so maybe we should be preparing for that. I'm not against the idea of Exocrines, just trying to cover all bases here. Chaos Knights are even better vd us than Imperial ones, js there a way to cover both threats here without putting a ridiculous amount of points in AT? I can't help but think I'd prefer Rupture Cannon since it puts a hurting on Knights, especially since they can probably smack down an Aggressor or two in a pinch as well, and from a safer range as well, I think 48 over 36 helps a lot vs SM shooting.
The anti-knight in my lists comes from about 600 points of GSC allies.
I've given up trying to get anti-knight firepower out of the tyranid codex. Outside of running an Old One Eye shaped guided missile into one, it's a job better suited to allies.
Arson Fire wrote: The anti-knight in my lists comes from about 600 points of GSC allies.
I've given up trying to get anti-knight firepower out of the tyranid codex. Outside of running an Old One Eye shaped guided missile into one, it's a job better suited to allies.
You know, I might follow your lead and do the same. I'll need to get a second Exocrine because I don't expect much from one, but maybe 2 Exocrines with some GSC Bikes might really cover a lot of bases, without chewing up half the list worth of points.
Though Aggressors are bloody scary I'll say that much. Perfect counter to an army that is forced to come to them, so maybe we should be preparing for that. I'm not against the idea of Exocrines, just trying to cover all bases here. Chaos Knights are even better vd us than Imperial ones, js there a way to cover both threats here without putting a ridiculous amount of points in AT? I can't help but think I'd prefer Rupture Cannon since it puts a hurting on Knights, especially since they can probably smack down an Aggressor or two in a pinch as well, and from a safer range as well, I think 48 over 36 helps a lot vs SM shooting.
Personally I think I'm going to load up on Haurspex now with Aggressors. Drop em in, then assault. It's gonna be pricey, but I think they'll be the perfect counter to those Billion S4 shots and the Overwatch Stratagem.
Apologies if this has been discussed to death, but what's the current thinking on Tyrannofex w/ Fleshborer Hives? It seems on paper like it could do some real damage to Primaris with Pathogenic Slime, but I suspect Dakkafexes might do it better.
Any other ideas on how to counter Aggressors? One of my regular opponents is pure Ultramarines, and I'm dreading going up against them.
catbarf wrote: Apologies if this has been discussed to death, but what's the current thinking on Tyrannofex w/ Fleshborer Hives? It seems on paper like it could do some real damage to Primaris with Pathogenic Slime, but I suspect Dakkafexes might do it better.
Any other ideas on how to counter Aggressors? One of my regular opponents is pure Ultramarines, and I'm dreading going up against them.
I'm not sold on the Fleshborer hive. Main effect I see it having against Primaris is driving them into cover. Assuming stationary, and Gorgon, and Scorch Bugs, and Primaris with no modifiers to hit, that's forty shots, 58.3% accuracy, 23 hits, 83.3% wound rate, 19.4 wounds, 6.48 failed saves.
Six and a half dead Marines isn't a great bodycount, and that's in lab conditions. This thing is an Ork destroyer, not a Primaris hunter; in the field, MEQ/PEQ infantry are going to hug cover and halve that kill rate to three and a bit - and that's after throwing CP at the thing. And if it's facing Aggressors, they're just going to laugh at it off then slap it to death.
As for Aggressors - I'm pretty sold on the Gorgon Exocrine with Pathogenic Slime. A dozen shots with 75% accuracy, eight hits wounding on threes, 5.3 wounds, 4.4 dead Aggressors. Not ideal, but they're a brutal matchup and I'm reluctant to rely on the Haruspex solution - my Tyranid fight phases usually have a lot of units in brawls, and I'd rather not present too many who-goes-first-wins situations for my opponent to counter-offensive.
That sad, acid spray t-fex looks good. Definitely the go-to for my Behemoth main fleet when Gravis starts to show up in my meta. Not as fierce a firepower but auto hitting overwatch is a definite plus when the drop pod assault and charge roll bonuses shenanigans begin.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
lindsay40k wrote: Check the armory on page 112 of the codex. Devourers with Brainleech Worms are their own weapon entry.
What are the thoughts on Mawlocs? I'm gearing up for a 1000 pts tourney in a couple of weeks and am not sure yet if I will swap out one of my Carnifexes for a Mawloc (monster list with OOE).
Now I tried a Mawloc in one game against an Eldar construct list and it did quite nice. First the deepstrike in turn 2 did some mortal wounds on three units, all of them quite expensive. With the big base it is quite easy to 'hit' two or more models from below. My opponent then had a 12W T6 monster in his rear whilst at the same time half a dozen carnifexes were charing into his front. In the subsequent turn he killed and tied up a couple of Eldar psykers and Reapers. All very nice.
And another question: I am toubting which hivefleet is more suitable for a monster list (no swarmy): either Kraken or Jorm. I like the +1 on the save, but it makes me slower as I won't advance. Kraken is very fast indeed which has its cons. I tend to go for Kraken as it means I'll be shoving my carnifexes into my opponents face quicker (sometimes with Onslaught and the strategem).
Singleton Mosby wrote: What are the thoughts on Mawlocs? I'm gearing up for a 1000 pts tourney in a couple of weeks and am not sure yet if I will swap out one of my Carnifexes for a Mawloc (monster list with OOE).
Now I tried a Mawloc in one game against an Eldar construct list and it did quite nice. First the deepstrike in turn 2 did some mortal wounds on three units, all of them quite expensive. With the big base it is quite easy to 'hit' two or more models from below. My opponent then had a 12W T6 monster in his rear whilst at the same time half a dozen carnifexes were charing into his front. In the subsequent turn he killed and tied up a couple of Eldar psykers and Reapers. All very nice.
And another question: I am toubting which hivefleet is more suitable for a monster list (no swarmy): either Kraken or Jorm. I like the +1 on the save, but it makes me slower as I won't advance. Kraken is very fast indeed which has its cons. I tend to go for Kraken as it means I'll be shoving my carnifexes into my opponents face quicker (sometimes with Onslaught and the strategem).
Also look into Behemoth as they get some cool Hammer of wrath tricks....
And another question: I am toubting which hivefleet is more suitable for a monster list (no swarmy): either Kraken or Jorm. I like the +1 on the save, but it makes me slower as I won't advance. Kraken is very fast indeed which has its cons. I tend to go for Kraken as it means I'll be shoving my carnifexes into my opponents face quicker (sometimes with Onslaught and the strategem).
Kraken for a monster assault army, full of close combat carnifexes and old one eye. Here getting your forces across the table asap takes priority. Kraken also lets you take advantage of being able to retreat carnifexes from combat then charge them back in for +1 to hit and a chance at a mortal wound (plus also an extra attack if they have tusks).
Jorm for a monster gunline army, full of things like tyrannofexes and exocrines. Long ranged monsters don't need to move much, so can take better advantage of the cover provided by the hive fleet ability. It also lets you use raveners to taxi in a devilgaunt bomb if you feel like it. Kronos is also a solid choice for this sort of shooting army, trading defense for offense.
But Stealers popping out of tunnels is a doable thing. Add some Rippers to grab Objectives and maybe some 
A Carnifex could be your version of a Dreadnot
If you are running "lots o'stealers"(
and I'm not saying I have a "Sky is falling" mentality, I'm just pointing out that I've thoroughly ready this thread and you're right, seems like there are some Negative Nancys out there. I appreciate the words of advice from the previous replies to my post about the Carnifex. I still plan on playing my bugs whole heartily even though I have quite a few Carnifex models. Back in the day, they where the "ONLY" big model out there and it was a monster for sure. Now these days, not so much. For me personally, I don't think flying Hive Tyrants are that effective, nor fluffy. But hey, that's my take. I'm sure they are a crutch for most competitive armies out there. I've always been more of a "Ground Pounder" when it comes to such units.